nosleep

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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/MoekkoLoli on 2024-11-06 06:47:09+00:00.

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Okay, I'm Lizzie, and I'm a high schooler, I am a bit creeped out by my friend, Mika. Mika is a cute girl, a Japanese girl living in America. She's a pretty girl with a narrow, triangular face. She's very cheerful and tends to be really touchy with me, but I always feel a little drained when I hang with her. I wish she could come to my house but she says she doesn't visit anyone who has a dog. She has some weird habits, which are a bit cute, but still.

She once bit me softly to be...cute, I think?

She can be a real asshole. She has a tendency to mess with and lie to people. Like, one time, she somehow managed to get a guy to eat woodchips. I don't know how she did that, but she was bragging to everyone about it at lunch. She NEVER answers the phone, which is weird because I know she has a phone because she keeps messing around with her phone during class and the teachers just...Do not care?? She tells me stories about medieval times, but says them in ways that make them sound less like old legends and more like funny memories. Even when it's something like "AND THEN HE KILLED HER!"

Also, I know she's probably into the furry fandom, as she has this weird clip on (?) tail that moves as if it were real that she sometimes comes to school with before taking it off in the bathroom, and when surprised she screams in a way that sounds like a very angry wild animal. Her laugh sounds like this, which is cute, but weirds me out. She once said "I'm cat software running on dog hardware with a dolphin soundboard, but with a human external drive."

All of this is just...weird, but here's an encounter with her I had this weekend. She invited me to a sleepover at her house, and I went there. She didn't give me directions, she just said "You'll know it when you see it. It's a giant mansion!" After 20 minutes of walking, I saw a huge mansion, and she hugged me, telling me to come in. Parents were nowhere in sight, which was weird for a sixteen year old. She said they were on a business trip for the weekend. That sleepover was exciting, but also weird. I found a bunch of red hair piles in random places that didn't seem like human hair (she has black hair), and I always felt weirdly tired, as if some part of my energy had just been...stolen.

But what really convinced me she wasn't human was, when I went to bed, I woke up...on a mattress in a landfill, with her nowheere in sight. I passed out while walking home due to how exhausted I was (which was odd, as I was asleep for a while..) and was taken back home. I'm a bit afraid of Mika now...did she teleport me to a landfill or something?

She has also done many other creepy things, which may be rumors. Apparently, she hung out in the woods near our small town and invited a guy out to hang out with her, and he went missing for 2 weeks, and was so traumatized from whatever he saw that he hasn't gone back to school since. He also seems to have a pathological addiction to her.

She always eats the same thing every day, and pretty much every guy at school has a mega crush on her. They always give her gifts. She absolutely freaks out and screams like a banshee every time someone touches her necklace...Oh, I didn't mention she ALWAYS wears a necklace with a dark black and purple pearl (i think) pendant. Because she does. And sometimes it looks like something's moving in front of it. She calls it her "starbit".

All of this easily convinces me, this girl is not a human.

Does anyone have an idea what she is? Like is she a fae or something?

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/choke76w on 2024-11-07 03:26:43+00:00.

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I run an old apothecary shop in Millbrook, selling what my grandmother called "chromatic remedies." I used to think they were just colored water and lies. I was wrong.

Last month, a man named Marcus walked in holding a dying chameleon. Luna, he called her. Her scales were wrong—not the healthy green they should've been, but a sickly translucent white that made my stomach turn. You could see her veins pulsing beneath, like dark rivers under ice.

I should've told him my grandmother's remedies were placebos. Instead, I gave him the midnight-blue bottle from the highest shelf, the one she'd labeled "For those who see too much." Three drops at moonrise, I told him. I thought I was selling hope in fancy packaging.

He came back weekly. Each time, Luna's colors grew stranger. Not just greens or browns, but colors that shouldn't exist—shades that left afterimages burned into my vision. Colors that made customers nauseous. Colors that cameras couldn't capture, showing only static where Luna should be.

Then Marcus told me about his wife, Sarah. How she'd died painting their nursery "future's promise pink." How Luna had been hers. How the chameleon had turned that exact shade of pink the moment Sarah flatlined.

I found my grandmother's real grimoire last night, hidden under the floorboards. The pages weren't recipes for colored water—they were formulas for distilling emotions into visible spectrum, extracting memories into liquid form. The final entry, ink still wet after decades, was about a chameleon who could see the true colors of souls.

This morning, Luna turned a color I can't describe. It hurt to look at, like trying to see through time. Marcus called in a panic—the nursery walls were pulsing, and he could hear Sarah's voice in the colors.

I rushed over. The entire room rippled with impossible shades. Luna sat in the center, turning colors that made my eyes bleed. And there, in the corner, something was taking shape—a figure made of colors that shouldn't exist, wearing Sarah's face like a mask of shifting light.

I tried to run, but Luna turned to look at me. Her eyes rotated independently: one fixed on me, one on the color-thing that used to be Sarah. She turned a final color then—the color of truth, of reality unraveling.

I'm writing this from the hospital. The doctors say there's nothing physically wrong with my eyes, but I keep seeing colors that don't exist. They leak from the corners of my vision, pooling like mercury on the floor. The walls pulse with them.

Marcus isn't answering his phone. The neighbors reported strange lights from the nursery window last night. And my grandmother's bottles, all of them, have turned that same impossible color Luna did at the end.

I can see it now, creeping under my door. It has Sarah's voice, and it's calling my name.

My grandmother wrote that some colors exist before light itself. I think I finally understand what she meant. And I think it's too late.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/yohane66 on 2024-11-07 02:36:08+00:00.

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I recently turned 40, and I've had a pretty interesting life. Married, 4 kids and a stable career. Unfortunately during a check up, I was told I was overweight. Wanting to live to see my grandkids, I decided I'd do something about it. Everyday after work I traveled to a local nature trail. There I tried to walk at least a mile before going home. Between the serene sights of the forest and listening to music. It became a peaceful stroll i looked forward to everyday. After changing some eating habits, I was relieved to see the weight come off. But I wasn't finished, after losing twenty pounds I didn't plan on stopping. One day after work I once again planned to go walk.

This time however, I noticed something different. A little ways down from the usual wooded path I took, was yet another trail. I hadn't noticed it before, but maybe it was new. I didn't see any signs or human activity, but I figured why not. A change of scenery might be nice every once in a while. So I put in my ear buds and began my trek. As I started, I couldn't help but notice a few things. The usual trail had signs pointing you in the right direction and a wooden track to walk on. This one was only a grassy path surrounded by thick woods. It was odd but I shrugged and kept going.

With the oldies blaring in my ears, I was able to go over a mile. Now drenched in sweat and having a feeling of accomplishment. I was heading home with my head held high. While walking back, I failed to notice how deep I went. As the trail looked exactly the same. Getting tired, I was hoping that I'd see the end soon. But it just kept going, showing no signs of an exit. Looking up at the sky, I could see it was getting late. Feeling concerned, I pulled out my phone to call my wife and check in. Much to my chagrin, I had absolutely no cell service. With no other choice, I had to keep pushing forward.

I walked and walked till I was out of breath, but still no exit. I'd sit on the ground trying to catch my breath and figure out an explanation. I definitely don't remember walking this far, did I take another path? No that was impossible, the entire trail was a straight line! Maybe I got carried away and lost in my tunes. Perhaps I had a burst of energy and went farther than expected. So I stood back up and continued my trek back. I noticed the moon starting to become visible, giving the sky a dark blue glow. It wouldn't be long until nightfall and I definitely didn't want to be out here. I prayed that I'd see civilization again soon.

After what seemed like an hour, I was still out here! I was so tired and the path showed no signs of changing. Where the heck was i, why was this happening? I know I didn't walk that far, I'm almost three hundred pounds. Under normal circumstances I could've called for help, but not only did my phone have no service. It was now dead, the battery completely drained. It's safe to say I was beginning to panic. Here I am lost in the woods and now it's pitch black dark. I couldn't hear anything, I didn't see anyone…this was getting scary. But even though things were looking bad, cooler heads always prevail. So I glanced over at the woods next to me and got an idea. Since this path wouldn't end, maybe the forest would lead to an exit.

So I left the trail and started pushing through the thick brush. I could feel the briars sticking into my flesh and twigs cracking beneath my feet. I was so tired; praying that I was close to getting out of here. I wanted to go home and get something to drink, as well as explain myself to the wife. Just thinking about it gave me a sliver of hope. Unfortunately, I soon broke through the thick shrubbery. What I saw before me was the same path I had started on. The same path I had walked for hours, I was back on it. Now panicking like never before, I ran through the trees once again.

I don't know how, but maybe I got turned around while having to snap branches. Perhaps I just went in a big circle, regardless I was getting desperate. As I began yelling at the top of my lungs. Screaming out hoping that someone would hear me. I hollered until I was out of breath, I didn't hear anything in reply. I fell to my knees, feeling completely defeated. Something wasn't right, I didn't know where I was but it wasn't a nature trail. It felt like I was an ant trying to find my way out of a maze, like someone was toying with me. This was still earth right, not some gateway to hell?

My breathing got harder, this time out of sheer terror. I started to hyperventilate, swearing the woods were closing in around me. I wanted to see my wife again, my children…even my grouchy boss. I didn't want to die out here!! I stood up once more and slapped myself to fight the panic. I had to make it out, there was no other option…so I ran. I ran and didn't stop, tearing through the thorns and vines ignoring every sting. My heart was beating so fast, but I wasn't stopping until I found a way out. As the adrenaline flowed I forgot how exhausted I was. I kept coming back onto that godforsaken trail but I wasn't giving up. I closed my eyes and kept running, not letting even death knock me down.

After what seemed like forever, I ran into something hard. So hard that I let out a yell and hit the ground. As I opened my eyes, I was met with a ticked off policeman. He let out a pained groan before shining his flashlight in my face. As our eyes met, his jaw dropped. He quickly grabbed his walkie talkie and called for backup. The officer explained to me that I had been missing and my wife called them for help. When he told me how long I'd been gone, I nearly fainted. The man said that I had vanished for four days straight; and that my family was worried sick. He said that search parties had been formed and signs were hung up.

He told me they had started to lose hope before I ran into him. Back at the station I was reunited with my beautiful family. I hugged my kids so tight and gave my wife the biggest kiss. With tears in their eyes, they begged for an explanation. When I told them what happened, I could tell they didn't believe me. But seeing my cut up legs and sweat soaked clothes was a pretty good argument. The cops would even give me a breathalyzer test to see if I was drunk. When it came back negative, everyone was confused. Since my explanation wasn't winning them over, I decided to show them the trail. The next day my wife and two officers followed me to the path. I knew I wasn't crazy or a drunk, and they were about to find out.

But as we arrived, I want you to guess what happened. The path wasn't there, instead only thick woods. The breath left my lungs, I absolutely couldn't believe it. Where did it go, it was right here yesterday…what was going on? While I stood speechless, my wife and the cops gave me an odd look. My wife told me that I must've been tired; that my job was getting to me. She said I needed to take some time off and relax. But I shook my head and persisted, this couldn't be happening.

What happened to me, where had I gone for all that time…nothing made sense. I was brought home and told to rest, everyone gave me sympathetic looks. As time went on things went back to normal, but I'd never forget. Something strange happened in those woods and I never got any answers. One thing was for sure, I ended up joining a gym like a normal person.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/PleasantNightLongDay on 2024-11-07 01:53:51+00:00.

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I moved into my new apartment 10 days ago, after landing a new job that pays enough to warrant this crosscountry change. I’m in a new city where I don’t know anyone; I’m brand new here, and things are already getting weird.

I need to know if I’m going crazy - this has to be some distasteful prank, right? I feel like I'm going insane.

My new apartment complex can be classified as “high end”. I’m definitely not used to living in this kind of “privileged” environment, but I quite like it. It’s a gated community, with a security guard in the entrance booth 24 hours a day. Every street, parking area, and sidewalk are always well-lit. The Community Center has a gym and “club house” with all sorts of amenities. There’s a sizable dog park that my Chance (a 2 year old Lab mix) already loves. Even the dog visitors are well behaved.

Everything is normal and not threatening. Which is why I keep thinking I’m making myself crazy here.

I’ve had a few “run ins” with a tenant that are increasing in severity.

On my 2nd night here, I took Chance for a walk around the complex; he only feels at home after he sniffs, smells, and pees on everything. So I was giving him the chance to do just that. Everyone I encountered was occupied in their own business. Some had headphones on. Others were on the phone. Families chatted on their evening walk. All except an old and wiry lady. I felt her gaze well before our paths crossed. From about 30 meters away, I felt her eyes lock onto me. I met her eye line, was taken back by her disturbing look, and turned back down towards Chance. Her eyes were wide, bloodshot, and unblinking. Under most circumstances, her look would be almost comical, with her eyebrows wrinkled her forehead with how elevated they were, and her eyes were wide enough you would think she was trying to keep from falling asleep. Except she was walking directly at me. You never notice a person’s walking rhythm and cadence until you encounter someone like her: He took steps of all sizes at varying speeds, making her seem intoxicated.

As we crossed paths, Chance, being his usual self, approached her; but she never broke eye contact with me. It was as if the 75 pound goofball wasn’t slobbering at her feet. She continued walking, staring at me, shaking her head slightly. Her blood shot eyes were those of a terrified person, begging for blinking lubrication.

At our closest proximity, she whispered “Get…Out” in an airy and raspy tone, as if struggling to find air to breath.

I pulled Chance closer to me and walked away, pretending to have not heard her or noticed her peculiar demeanor.

That was the first one, but the threats, warnings, whatever you want to call them, only have become worse.

On the 5th night, I was in bed, reading with my bed stand light on. Chance slept at my feet. I was deep in my book, but the sudden silence created by the absence of Chance’s snoring caught my attention. I put the book down and noticed his head was cocked towards my bedroom door. He huffed and puffed suspiciously, as if wanting to alert me with a bark, but being unsure of what was going on. He jumped onto the ground with the clumsy and ungraceful thump of a Labrador, and exited my room. Instantly, he was barking wildly. I ran to see what was going on. The possibility of any sort of danger never crossed my mind - this was a very “nice” complex. I found Chance pawing and scratching, unaware that a note had been slipped under the door. I picked up the folded message, and this time, I got a little more information.

“GeT oUt. hE IS cOmiNG foR yOu.”

This actually made me chuckle. I read about people writing in a mixture of capital and lowercase letters to add a spooky factor to their message in books, but I had never encountered it in real life. I pretended not to notice the fact that there were a few brown streaks that resembled blood throughout the paper. I folded it and placed it in the trash. I returned to bed, still warm and cozy.

If it were just these two instances, I would have dismissed them. I definitely do not have that special element that allows people to believe in the supernatural. But what happened tonight has me doubting my intuition.

An hour ago, at approximately 2AM, Chance repeated the same alerting routine. He plopped out of bed, waking me up, and ran to the front door. I got up very groggy and stumbled out. I half expected another note of the sPoOKy nature, but there was nothing there. Chance scratched at the door, barking aggressively. Without thinking (my brain was still in bed asleep), I opened the door to find the same wiry lady that I encountered on my first night. Except this time she looked fully psychotic, distraught, and potentially injured. Her clothes were drenched, as if she had been submerged in water. They highlighted how skinny she truly was, hanging onto her like a scarecrow. She was covered in something thick - maybe mud - that clumped her thin hair. Her eyes were the same, wide, red, and unblinking. She had light cuts around her arms, neck and face.

Her voice - I must have dreamed this - didn’t quite register in my brain. It was as if two voices were coming out of one mouth, one voice was extremely high pitched - almost inaudible - and the other extremely low pitched, like a rumble. But it still remained raspy and airy, as if she had just sprinted up the stairs and was out of breath.

“Get out…He is coming for you…” She said.

I stood staring at her, my brain barely getting out of bed. My first thought was of the security guard at the entrance. Surely security here is tight. As if reading my mind, she added, “Get out…before it’s too late and they don’t let you leave anymore..He is coming for you.”

Instinctively, I shut the door on her. Chance continued barking for a few minutes. He then determined the threat was gone, and crawled back into bed. I sat next to him, in shock.

I’ve been staring blankly at the floor and couldn’t do anything else other than write this.

I’m crazy for feeling any sort of fear, right? Surely it’s just one - assuming the note came from her - crazy lady freaking me out. I don’t know what to think.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/CapnMarvelous on 2024-11-07 01:41:36+00:00.

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Part 1

The longer you're in a strange situation, the more your brain just numbs itself to the insanity of it. It was strange at first, waking up to sometimes see Rocky at the foot of my bed. His appearance was sporadic. He'd appear and disappear as he saw fit. The longest I recall him being gone was about a month and a half. I almost thought he had left for good. Maybe he went to heaven? Then he came back, as if nothing had changed.

After a time, it became weirder when Rocky wasn't around. I'd still see spirits, now and again, but I hadn't seen anything like Rocky since he came into my life. I kept him a secret from my parents. Coupled with everything that had happened, I thought I was an adult now at six and too old for an "imaginary friend". It's laughable what children think maturity is and to my younger self's credit, Rocky wasn't imaginary.

At the beginning, I merely tried to introduce him to my hobbies and interests. It was through this way that I found Rocky couldn't see electronics that well. He could make out movies, video games and TV shows, but he told me they were often muted and filled with static. When I tried to introduce him to video games, he just didn't comprehend it. "A show that you play. It doesn't make sense,". Board games he seemed to respond better to, though I'd have to read the rules and explain them.

It was a friday night that I finally asked about him, alone in my room when I should have been sleeping. Mom and Dad din't know, plus my door was locked. "Where do you come from?" It was a simple enough question, open-ended.

"I was like you."

"You were a person?"

I flipped a card for Rocky. Pass go. I'd move his piece for him and place the money in front of him, though he didn't seem particularly interested. Rocky just seemed to enjoy being treated like a person as opposed to...whatever he was.

"Yes."

"Do you remember your life?"

"I was a...person. I don't remember much of the before time. I remember that I was a...soldier. Yes. I did things. I killed people."

My brow furrowed as I flipped my own card. Go directly to jail. Gross. I moved my piece. "Is that why you're how you are?"

Rocky craned his head to better look at my eyes. He liked to make eye contact, even though he had none. "It is a rule I found out about the after. When you kill, when you take a life personally, you become more like me."

I stared at him. It was a heavy topic for a child, much more so with the frankness he presented it with. "How do you know?"

"I've found others like me. I can smell when its close. When someone is close to dying. The smell...what's your favorite food?"

I moved his piece but I did so half-heartedly. My attention was elsewhere. "I like pizza with onions."

"Imagine that. But you haven't eaten in years. Imagine the smell. The aroma. So close. So delicious." It was the first time I ever saw two slits open on Rocky's face, just above that mouth, a wheezing inhalation sound. "You couldn't understand it. How hungry you get. How you'll do -anything- for it."

My mind had finally linked what had happened with Mr. Raymonds. "...But you only chase after bad people, right? Was Mr. Raymonds a bad person actually?"

Another wheezing. This one, however, was more of a laugh. "No. I don't know. I don't care. I simply need it."

I frowned. That wasn't a good answer. It was cruel and callous, even to a child. "But you should only chase after bad people."

"Life and the after don't care about such things." Rocky's gaze locked harder with mine. "Look at me. Understand me; Fairness. Justice. Morality. They do not exist. When you are in the after, you do what you need. You fight. You thrash. You eat. You survive. Because that is all there is here."

It was times like this, looking back, I don't think Rocky truly grasped how young I was. I don't think he had known such words would bounce off a child's head. I only remember them now because of what would come after. "What if you just...didn't?" I'd ask, rolling my dice. Not out of jail.

Rocky wheeze-laughed again. His head tilted further down, twisting his neck until he was almost looking at me upsidedown. "I need to eat. I need to."

"But—"

"You know so little of this world. You know so little of my own. One day, you will understand."

The room felt just a bit colder. I stared back at the board, playing my game which at this point was me moving pieces while he watched.

"Where do you go when I'm away?" I asked.

"I search to fill the void."

"And...uh...what fills the void?"

"Do not ask questions that we both know the answer to."

We'd continue our game in silence after that, me moving pieces, just trying to enjoy myself. But the question lingered. Did it really take him that long to live? Was that his equivalent of chores? I didn't know. Looking back, I should have shooed him off then and there. But I didn't. I wanted to try and "help" Rocky. Whatever that meant. Maybe if he saw how I lived my life, he'd have a change of heart?

"Do you want to come to school with me?" I asked.

A confused look, the tapping of knife-like fingers. "I could."

"It'll be fun if you do."

"...I will do this. I will see how things have changed since I was in your world."

I wish there was more to talk about. More hints, more things, but that was the thing about Rocky. He was an observer. A guardian angel, if you believe he was pure. A malevolent curse, if you don't. It was rather unnerving how normal that school day was. He didn't comment or say anything, he merely watched. The expression never changed: Passive confusion. An alien on the outside, watching acts and rituals. Nothing seemed to click. It finally occurred to me that...maybe Rocky was too far gone? Maybe Rocky had just let his mind wander away from what it meant to be like us? To be human?

The one brief note was that as we were walking to lunch, Rocky stopped. I didn't say anything and kept walking but he seemed to be drawn to another classroom. My school went from kindergarten to eighth grade, Rocky focused entirely on a history class watching what I think was a war movie. His head tilted to the side, breaking away from me as he went to look through the window.

Rocky would rejoin me later after lunch. It was during recess now and I was distracted playing kickball. Rocky followed me, watching children play, as I guarded the outfield. "Did you see something that you remembered?" I asked in a hushed whisper.

"Yes. Maybe. Possibly."

"What was it?"

"A far away place. Blood. Fire. Noise. Hate fo—"

Rocky stopped what he was saying. Those slits on his face where his nose would be opened up, drinking the air of the after in deeply. A low, gutteral groan rippled from his throat, his words stopped. Every muscle on his body flexed, growing taut, his fingers writhing as he smelt something. "Rocky?" I whispered, confused.

He didn't respond to me. I don't think he even knew who I was. He dropped to all fours and began to sprint. It was exactly as I saw him when Mr. Raymond died; a wild, charging behemoth. The worst part of it all was how silent he was. That silence made it easy for me to hear the braying of something in the distance. The direction of which Rocky had begun sprinting towards. It was feasting time.

"IDIOT! THE BALL!"

I was so distracted that I hadn't noticed that the kickball had landed in my field, tumbling toward the direction Rockey had gone. Morbid curiosity overcame me as I saw it roll where he had gone, his mountainous form hunched over...something. "Sorry, sorry, I'll get it," I called out, rushing to follow it. When others weren't looking, I'd subtly nudge it toward the treeline. Our school was on the very edge of a forest, with no fence to stop children. An oversight from the pre-millenium, to be sure.

The ball tumbled down into the forest's edge, just close enough to where Rocky was. I could finally see it then. The scene before me. It was the first time I had seen Rocky actually doing what he did as opposed to hearing from afar. In the physical world, I saw a dead body for the first time. A deer, freshly deceased. Nothing that would scare someone, unless they'd never seen a dead body before.

The spirit world, on the other hand, was a different story.

The blue "body" of the spirit was torn apart. I would have never considered such a sight could exist in the realm beyond life, yet here it was. The deer wasn't a deer anymore, having been rended apart with a brutal savagry my young mind could have never comprehended. Limbs sent in all directions, the body torn asunder. Yet there was a...softness to it. Already, that gore began to evaporate, disappearing from the world around it.

And there, hunched over the spiritual carcass, was Rocky. Shoveling pieces of of it into his blender maw, completely ignoring me. Gore shot out from his mouth, anything that wouldn't feed him staining the ground. Claws tore apart what remained, getting pieces that could fit. He gorged himself on whatever he could, ignoring me watching. Did he not care? Did he want me to watch? Or was that hunger so all-consuming that he couldn't be bothered to think about anything other than eating?

"Dude, what's taking so long!?" one of my classmates called out, running up to me. "...Woah, is that a dead deer!? GROSS!"

It was right then that I collapsed.

I got to go home early after that. The guidance counselor recommended some time ...

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This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/02321 on 2024-11-06 22:04:08+00:00.

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First:

Previous:

My hand had been slowly healing. Not being able to fully flex my fingers the first few days was a little annoying. I didn’t want to strain myself chasing down supernatural monsters until the tainted magic faded. Instead of monster hunting, I took some time to collect cans and bottles off the street in my neighborhood. I got a few judgmental glances. It got me out of the house and enough money to buy a loaf of bread and a carton of eggs. Plus, some trash got recycled. A win for everyone.  

Finally, a new request came in that sounded simple enough. I was surprised to find out August passed on it. He said he didn’t want anyone to see him hanging around in bars and assuming he was a bad parent who stayed out all night.  

There have been three disappearances in the past two weeks. All were male and each had last been seen at a certain bar. There were no records of them getting a lift home. The one who drove to the bar left behind his car. So far, he had not appeared again to claim it. Some cameras pointed to the front door, but none of the men were seen leaving. However, the front door isn’t the only exit. There is a chance they left some other way. Something like this normally doesn’t get on The Corporation's radar. A fourth man was found inside a bar’s washroom with his head missing. It didn’t seem possible for a human to remove the head, clean up, and leave without being seen in such a short span of time. That was when something supernatural had been considered.   

The job was simple. To act as bait to lure out anything that may be targeting men in the area. The Corporation would cover the bar tabs for food and nonalcoholic drinks. I heard there were at least three others who took the job ready to sit around in different bars in the area looking for signs of a predator. It seemed easy enough. I didn’t even need to fight the monster if I found it. Passing along info to stronger Agents was good enough.   

I didn’t want to wear my better clothing I was able to remove the security tags from. Thankfully my local thrift shop had a sale I spent some of my recycle money on. Sure, the clothing was a little worn and I could not get the thrift shop smell from them, but what supernatural monster would ever notice that?   

I hoped this job lasted a few days for the free meals. The first night was uneventful. I talked to some of the regulars and bought them some food on my company's dime. No one had noticed anything strange lately. The bar wasn’t overly busy, but I assumed that would change the next night. It was near a college so on Friday and Saturday nights it was normally packed regardless of the odd recent death in a nearby bar. From what I could tell this place was for normal humans to make bad choices. I wanted to wait through the weekend just to be certain.   

When the bar closed on the first night, I ordered a few extra meals to take home. And to give out some to the homeless men I saw hanging outside when I arrived earlier that night. Most of the time the homeless are the ones to see the first signs of supernatural creatures. Due to their situation, and what led them to their current lifestyle, most people wouldn’t believe them even if they went to the police with important information. Most of the time they never spoke up because they feared authority figures.   

Two gratefully accepted the food while one wasn’t pleased I didn’t offer him money. I asked them if they had seen anything strange lately. I was told me a few minutes before closing they had seen a man in a suit lurking around the alleyways. It appeared odd to them. I thanked them promising another meal tomorrow night if I was able.  

I tracked down the man they mentioned. Once I saw him poking around in the trash, I confirmed what I’d assumed.  

“I'm working on the same case as you. Find anything useful tonight?” I said causing the man to jump at someone suddenly talking to him.  

“Oh, no. Nothing, sorry. Are you an Agent as well?” He asked as he walked over towards me, slipping on some trash in the alleyway.  

He looked on the younger side. I never would have assumed he was an Agent fighting monsters at first glance. He had a smaller frame with a pretty face. One that reminded me of a Japanese ball-jointed doll. Honestly, his pale doll-like skin was almost creepy.   

“No, just a Contract Worker. I’m Richmond.” I offered my hand as I introduced myself.  

“I’m Agent Ito. Since we’ll be working on this together, let’s exchange phone numbers.”   

I pulled out my phone to get his number. He was friendly with a calming voice. An Agent like this wouldn’t last long in his line of work. He must be new. After exchanging numbers, he told me he was going to be at a bar two blocks away the next night. If I needed any help, I should text him. It was a nice feeling to know I had backup. I let him go on his way with a promise to take him up on the offer for help.  

I slept in the next day. Since I didn’t need to go out until later that night, I accepted a request from August to watch Lucas for a few hours. His washing machine was better than my own, so I babysat and did some chores.   

Things were too going well. That stressed me out. Call me paranoid, but I had a feeling of a rough night ahead of me.  

I was one of the first to enter the bar that night after babysitting. For hours nothing interesting happened. It got louder as more students arrived. I found a spot by the bar with a good view of the rest of the room. Every once and a while I looked off into the crowd looking for signs of magic. The strain on my eyes hurt like hell and I ended up giving myself a migraine. Being able to see magic and sometimes the past a human mask monsters wore didn’t help me get jobs done as often as someone might think. I couldn’t control the sight very well in such a large crowd. Most of the stronger creatures knew how to hide their powers even from my eyes. There was also a surprisingly large amount of harmless half-breeds. Some people weren’t even aware they had something other than human in them. So, someone with more magic than normal wasn’t a reason to be overly worried about.   

Halfway through the night, it was starting to look like a bust. A person sat next to me making it clear the night was going to get interesting. A set of blue eyes landed on mine. I found myself staring at one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen. Her long brown hair fell over her shoulders in waves. Her white turtleneck sweater was plain, but it didn’t need to be anything fancy. Her perfect features drew your attention away from what she was wearing. It took me a second to realize she had asked me to buy her a drink.  

I waved over the bartender and paid for one with my own money. The Corporation was only covering soda and juice. She thanked me with a smile that made me look away. When I looked back, I was once again caught by her beauty.   

“What's your name handsome? I’m Cameron.” She asked when her drink arrived.  

“Richmond.” I replied.  

My mouth felt dry just being around her. She gave another blinding smile that caused me to wonder if she was dangerous or not. You didn’t need special eyesight to see she wasn’t human. She was so clearly a hunter on the prowl.  

“What’s a guy like you doing in a college bar like this?” She pressed in a somewhat teasing tone.  

My job had worn down my features. I looked at least ten years older than I really was. A bar like this was a great spot for a creature to pick up easy targets. A chill went down my spine as I realized I might have come across the reason why men had started to go missing.   

“I’ll tell you if you can keep a secret.” I said as I lowered my voice.   

She leaned in, face bright and ready.   

“I’m keeping an eye on the bar for a good reason.” I started.  

“Is it because of the headless man in the bathroom a while ago?” She asked, face flushed with excitement.  

I focused on her reaction. Cameron looked happy to be talking with someone she thought to be a cop instead of fearful she would get caught.  Was she a man-eating monster or just a true crime junkie?  

“Something like that. What brings you to a bar like this? You don’t seem to be part of this crowd.” I pointed out.   

She looked over the room, her eyes staying on certain younger guys for a few seconds. She wasn’t hiding her hunger very well. I hoped she hadn’t realized I knew of supernatural creatures and assumed I was into local gruesome events like herself.   

“The guys here are easy. I smile at them, and I can take them home. Speaking of which, do you want to stay with me tonight?” She offered as she rested her chin in her hands.  

My mouth got dry again. I took a long sip of my drink hoping she would forget the offer in the next few seconds. She patiently waited for my answer. It was tempting. Very tempting. I almost said yes before I let my real brain think for a moment.   

“I’m not really your type. I’m honestly pretty depressing when you get to know me.” I half-joked hoping that scared her off.  

“I love pathetic men. The sadder the better.” She countered.  

“I’m working.” I said with a slight nervous shake in my voice.  

“I’m not asking for a quick hook-up in the bathroom. I can wait until the end of the night.”  

She reached o...

---

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This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Front-Driver-3595 on 2024-11-06 19:58:32+00:00.

---

I host the midnight-to-five slot on WKTS, a local radio station in my hometown of wouldn't you like to know. In the deep hours of the night, it's mostly dead air or sleep-deprived callers. You'd think I'd get used to strangers spilling their guts at ungodly hours, but trust me—it never gets old. My job is to keep me and them awake, entertained, and sane. I've heard every story before: tipsy night owls sharing past regrets, ghost encounters, college kids saying fuck all.

Anyway, my work isn't exactly nail-biting, edge-of-your-seat content, but it pays the bills. Besides, I like the strange stories and loyal listeners—they keep the job interesting enough. And sometimes, I have encounters that bring a whole new meaning to "interesting."

---

One odd call-in was from a trucker named Red. All I could garner was that he was a burly man with a southern drawl as thick and slow as molasses—low and raspy like he'd just smoked a pack before phoning in. He started calling in several months back, introducing himself with a gruff, "This is Red, on Route 39." After a few calls, I recognized his voice right away. Like clockwork, his calls would come in around three a.m., just as most listeners were winding down. At first, he was a breath of fresh air. He was polite, calm, and genuinely curious about whatever I was talking about. He'd always have a story to share and a laugh to exchange. Mostly, he'd share cheesy ghost stories or tales of being chewed out by his boss for a late delivery. Always light and fun. But after a month or two, his stories started getting...weird.

On one of his punctual calls, he bluntly asked, "You ever see something you can't explain?" His voice, for the first time, was timid and uneasy.

I retorted, "Red, I host a midnight show. Unexplained is part of the job description," expecting him to segue into another dumb tall tale. But he didn't laugh.

"Right," he said, slowly. "But I mean really strange things. Like towns you can't find on a map."

I joked about him taking the scenic route, but he ignored it and went on.

"Couple'a days back, I was on a stretch of Route 39 I've driven for twenty years. This time around, it felt...different. I passed this little town I'd never seen before. I figured maybe it was new, but something felt off. No signs. No cars. No people, either. Like driving through a movie set after hours."

This story didn't faze me much. I chalked it up to him missing his exit or stumbling on some ghost town. But every night after that, he'd call in retailing even stranger stories.

One night, he described seeing a row of unmarked black cars, their hazards all blinking in perfect unison. As he slowed down to a crawl, he saw that all of the cars were empty. "I got out for a second but felt a sense to get outta there. Wasn't a soul around."

"Well, at least—"

"Felt like they was...waiting for something."

Another night, he shared his encounter with a woman on the side of the road. Her figure was distorted by his lights for a moment. But as he passed her, she was just visible enough that he could make out some semblance of a face. "Maybe it was too dark. Or I was too tired."

"Why's that?"

"Her face. I can't get it outta my mind. Looked like it was stretched too tight across her cheeks, all rubbery. Her eyes were dark and hollow-lookin'."

For a second, I wanted to laugh and chalk it up to exhaustion. But the mental image he'd just painted? I couldn't get it out of my mind—and I wasn't even there.

He continued, describing her in eerie detail. Her smile was strewn unnaturally over her face, like she was only a mockery of what a human is. He talked about feeling a spike of fear hit his gut, hoping and praying he was just having sleepless hallucinations. She didn't wave him down or look distressed, so he drove past her.

"I looked in my rear-view and sh-she was gone."

Internally, my thoughts could be summed up in either this guy is a giant troll, or what the hell is going on?? However, I chimed in, "Maybe she hitched a ride with a ghost," trying to keep things light. But his silence told me he didn't find that funny.

After a week or so, he became a bit of a staple on the show. More people started listening in just to hear Red's three a.m. "adventures" on Route 39. I tried to brush it off as good radio, but I couldn't shake his tone. Each time he called in, he became more and more of a shell of his once-cheery self. His demeanor was restless and sporadic. He had an undeniable deep-seated sense of conviction like he really believed what he was experiencing was real. Yet, I still trusted his senses about as far as I could throw him.

But it was a night in late September that things changed.

He called in a little after three, and this time, there was no "hello" or "this is Red." Just a tense, quiet breathing on the line. I knew something was off right away.

"Red? You there?" I asked, leaning closer to the mic.

His voice began as a hushed murmur like he didn't want anyone to hear him. "I-I'm still on 39. Something's wrong. The highway's...changed."

"What do you mean?" I asked, my tone already faltering.

"It's like...I keep driving, but the road just keeps turning. Every time I think I'm going to reach a town, exit, anything, the road just," his scattered breathing stopping briefly, "bends."

I started to get that uneasy itch that comes when something feels a little too real. "Where are you headed?"

"I was just passing through, en route to the next stop on my delivery. Now it feels like I'm goin' in circles."

There was a pause, and I could hear the faint rumble of his truck engine in the background. He spoke again, each word shaking or cracking.

"I swear. I haven't seen a car in hours now. I passed the same damn billboard six or somethin' times. 'Last Stop on Route 39,' it says.

A cold chill worked its way up my neck. "Red, maybe you should pull over," I suggested. It was a good thing listeners couldn't see the look I had on my face at that moment. And I can't imagine the look that was on Red's. "Wait it out, call someone."

"I tried," he said, his voice nearly inaudible. "There's someone...followin' me."

My heart skipped a beat. Hell, it skipped five. "What do you mean?"

"An old beat-up sedan. Keeps coming up in my rearview, no matter how fast I go. Just close enough I can see its headlights."

I could hear the tension in his words, tight and choked like a wire pulled too taut, ready to snap with the slightest strain. I started babbling some explanations before he cut me off.

"Wait. It's right behind me now." There was a beat of silence. "Driver's slumped over. But I can see their eyes. Their eyes are open. They're looking at me. Oh, my God." His tone now turned to a desperate whine.

I was at a loss. "Red, get off that road. Find somewhere safe."

He ignored my plea. "Their eyes. Like that lady's. Dead nothin'."

Then, for what felt like whole minutes, there was nothing but static. Soon, a soft exhale from Red. "The road's splitting," he said, his voice removed and almost trance-like. "A real dark path. And the other's got a light at the end, like a building or something. It's too far to see."

"Go toward the light," I urged, my hands gripping my desk hard. "Get outta there."

There was another pause. It was long enough I almost thought he disconnected. "It's gone. I took the lighted road, and the car's gone."

I let out a heavy sigh of relief. Fear's cold grip on me let go in an instant. "Thank God. I'm glad you're okay, Red. Get some rest as soon as you can."

He chuckled, low and humorless. I could hear all of the fear and fatigue well up in his last words; "Yeah. Yeah, I think I'll do that. Thanks...for staying with me."

The line went dead, and I sat there, staring at the receiver. I waited, half-expecting him to call back, but he didn't that night. Or any night after that.

---

It's been a few months since my last call with Red. I've done some digging, hopeful for the guy. I can't find any incident reports for Route 39, missing truck drivers, or the like. That's why I'm asking for help on this; if anyone can lead me in the right direction to finding out about Red's fate? I have quite a few other stories I'd like to share if any of you are interested. Thank you.

Signing off from WKTS. Until next time, night-dwellers...

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Popular-Ask682 on 2024-11-05 22:40:45+00:00.

---

The following posts were originally found on a popular website forum and have since been removed.

OP (06-17-21): Several months ago, I lost my husband after he apparently died in his sleep. I wish I could say he looked to be at peace when he died, but the look of terror on his face when I found his body would suggest otherwise.

Now, I'm no doctor and I haven't seen many dead bodies, so I assumed his ghastly expression was a normal occurrence. Something related to the muscle fibers expending their last ATP stores to cause one last final muscle contraction, a final abnormal neurological firing resulting in an odd last facial expression… but now I'm starting to think there might have been another, more ominous reason.

After months of mourning his loss, I decided it was finally time to start going through my husband’s things. To get a sense of closure. To move on with my life. Maybe even try and meet someone new. 

While going through his bedside dresser, I found a diary. He was a writer, albeit not a very good one, and I'm told this is a normal thing that writers to do. Sometimes he would have vivid dreams and would have to jot them down before they slipped his mind.

I'll relay his entries here as they're written in his diary. Knowing who he was and what he believed, I know that this is what he would have wanted; he would have wanted me to share his musings with the world, even if they fell on deaf ears. But before you read any further, there is one slight caveat I should mention. He had hundreds of entries in his diary and I read through all of them. Maybe to get a better sense of who he was, maybe because I was bored, or maybe because I just wanted to hear his voice again and reading his words allowed me to hear them. To hear him.

Regardless, most of the entries are rather mundane, lacking in inspiration or originality, but towards the end his dreams started to become more linear, almost like a TV series, with a clear protagonist and antagonist. A beginning, a middle, and an end. I’ll start relaying his entries at the beginning, or at least what I believe to be the beginning.

Entry 1: I'm sitting in the bleachers of my high school basketball gym. It's exactly how I remember. There are 2 sets of bleachers on each side of the court, one on the lower level and one on the upper level; I'm on the upper level. The dance team is doing some kind of performance, but I'm not really paying attention because my high school crush – we’ll call her Angelica to protect her identity and because she was like an angle to me - is sitting directly across from me; we keep making eye contact.

OP: I didn't know he had a crush on anyone in high school, but I'm willing to let bygones be bygones.

Entry 1 (continued): The dance team is finally done with their performance. I'm now standing by myself in the middle of the basketball court. The spotlight is on me. Shit. I'm still in my underwear. The entire audience is laughing at me. I turn to run, but I'm now in the middle of our football field. It's our high school graduation.

Entry 2: I'm back in the middle of the football field, but now I have pants on (thank God) along with my cap and gown. Our entire graduating class is sitting in plastic foldable chairs, all neatly laid out in the middle of the football field. Why did they make us sit out here for our graduation in the middle of summer? Anyway, the valedictorian is in the middle of a commencement speech. 

And now the valedictorian – initially an archetypal Poindexter, complete with braces, glasses, freckles and a pocket protector – has transformed into Angelica because of course that would happen. I can't stop staring into her eyes and I barely process what she’s saying. Why can't I stop staring? Does she wear contacts or are her eyes really that captivating?

Angelica stops in middle of her speech and fiddles with the microphone. There doesn't seem to be any sound coming from it. I never hear anything in my dreams anyway, so it's kind of weird seeing someone else in a dream react to not being able to hear themselves.

Suddenly, someone appears next to the podium where she's standing. I recognize everyone else in my dream except for this strange interloper. He leans over and whispers something to her. She nods to the mysterious guest and makes her way to her seat, which, you guessed it, is right next to me. Does that mean anything? It has to mean something.

The moment she sits down, the strange interloper picks up the podium and hurls it into the sky. Everyone, including me, looks up. When I look back down, the strange interloper has transformed from a pedestrian middle-aged man into a clown, complete with red curly hair, an unnerving smile and large sharp pointed teeth. I think he had eyes, but I don't remember what they looked like. Small red dots that pierce through the darkness? Or maybe they were large, yellow and lifeless… eyes the size of dinner plates that couldn’t possibly belong to anything in this reality? I’ll be sure to look more closely next time, if I have the wherewithal to remember.

Then, one of the school administrators took it upon herself to confront the clown and shoo him off the stage. As she approached, the clown’s gaze slowly shifted from the audience to the administrator. The clown’s intense gaze quickly melted her confident demeanor and she suddenly had a change of heart. Like a dog with their tail tucked between their legs, she slowly started to back away from the clown. She must have thought she was safe because she turned her back on him. Big mistake. He quickly closed the distance between them, picked her up, unhinged his jaw, and devoured her whole. I was completely speechless. And then I remembered I was in a dream.

When I woke up, I was drenched in sweat. I watched a scary movie about clowns last night, so that's probably what this clown thing is all about. To the light of my life, if you're reading this, that's why I washed the sheets. Not because I was actually trying to “be a better husband”, though I really do try.

Entry 3: I'm back on the football field and the clown just finished engulfing the administrator. He jumps down from the stage and begins devouring everyone in the front row, one by one. I stand up to get a better view. I can barely make out a pair of feet squirming before they disappear into the clown's grotesque mouth. I sit back down and turn to Angelica, who's still sitting next to me. She doesn't seem to be bothered at all by the atrocities happening before our eyes. In fact, no one seems bothered by the clown until they realize they’re next.

When I wake up, I'm not drenched in sweat, but my hands are sore. I think I had a death grip on my blankets while I was sleeping. I wonder how long my hands were stuck like that? I've never had nightmares of the same movie back-to-back and I've certainly never had such a visceral experience during my dreams, let alone dreams that happen in a linear fashion. How far can I take these dreams? Could these dreams be telling me something? Are they the gateway to the story that's going to make me famous? 

Entry 4: I'm back on the football field. The clown has finished devouring everyone in the front row, though he certainly doesn't look like he's eaten anyone because his funny little checkered vest still fits and his bow tie is still miraculously secured around his neck. I begin counting the rows between him and me.

21 rows between him and me. I let out a sigh of relief.

It seems the clown heard me because once I finished sighing, he looked directly at me. Up until this point, we hadn't actually made eye contact. What’s particularly strange is that I still don’t know what his eyes looked like, despite making a conscious effort to note their appearance. Maybe there was nothing where his eyes should have been and my mind is just trying to fill in the blanks. What I did notice is that the clown’s motivation seemed to change. At first, it seemed he was causally killing the audience members, almost as if he was tasked with killing these people and was reluctant to do so – like he drew the short straw and was in charge of cleanup on aisle 4. Now it seems like he’s trying to dispose of them quickly so he can get to me faster – rushing through the entrée so he can get to desert.

I say that because after the clown looked at me, he looked at the rows between him and me, bounced a few times in his massive red shoes, and then jumped 15 feet into the air. While suspended in mid-air, he began breathing fire at the rows in front of me. Rows 2-15 were suddenly filled with nothing but charred bodies and melted chairs.

When I woke, I could have sworn I smelled burning flesh and heard the muffled sound of people screaming. The smell lasted for only moments and the sound of screaming, even less so.

Entry 5: I’ve only slept twice over the past four days. That’s two more dreams. Two more rows of people dead. Two fewer rows between me and that clown, or that demon, or whatever it is.

I fear falling asleep because every time I fall asleep, another row of people dies, each time more brutally than the last. I’m beginning to fear that these aren’t just dreams after all.

Entry 7: I don’t know how long I’ve gone without sleep. I’m trying to hold it all together and pretend like everything is fine because no one would believe me if I told them the truth. If I told them what was really happening to me.

In the last dream I had, I tried to escape. Bu...

---

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This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/MindlessTurnip5160 on 2024-11-06 19:35:52+00:00.

---

When I was 18 and my sister was 5, I was babysitting in our family’s basement while my mom was in the shower and my stepdad was asleep. I should mention that my stepdad has the deepest, most distinct voice I’ve ever heard. Anyone who meets him comments on it, and even customers at his job, who’ve only spoken to him on the phone, request his assistance by saying, ‘The one with the deep voice!’ This will become important later.

It was my mom’s birthday, so she was taking one of those long showers, and I knew she’d be in there for a while. I’d taken out some toys and turned on the TV, which was the only noise in the house besides maybe the faint sound of the shower.

Our basement is set up so that the sofa is directly against the wall next to the stair landing. When you’re sitting on it, if you turn to the right, you can see straight up the stairs. In front of us was the rest of the room: TV, coffee table, etc.

As a dumb 18-year-old who semi-loved taunting my sibling, I switched the channel to a scary movie. My sister glanced up at it briefly and proudly declared, ‘Sissy, I’m not scared.’ Of course, this took all the fun out of the situation, so I quickly turned off the TV and sat on my phone while my sister played on the floor with her toys.

After a while, I heard a voice from the top of the stairs that sounded vaguely familiar but could have been coming from no one in the house. Again, my mom was showering (I could still hear the running water), and my stepdad was asleep. It clearly wasn’t his distinct voice.

The voice was a woman’s. My entire body ran cold, and I froze, knowing that if I looked to the right, I would see someone—or something—standing at the top of the stairs. I glanced down at my sister, who also stood frozen, tears in her eyes, staring straight at me.

I didn’t want to scare her—even though she was already petrified—so I calmly asked, ‘What’s wrong, baby?’ She whispered, as if not to be overheard by whoever was on the stairs, ‘Who was that?’

I was still trying to stay brave, so I asked, ‘Who was what?’ and she replied, ‘Who said that?’

At that point, I knew she heard it too, and I knew I wasn’t going crazy. I asked her what the voice had said, and she repeated it back to me exactly as I had heard it.

The worst part of the whole thing was what it said and how it said it. In the calmest, almost absent voice, whatever stood at the top of those stairs said, ‘Hey, Kayleigh?’ Even typing it gives me the chills. That’s my name. There was no emotion in the statement, but the small bit of inflection at the end made it clear it was a question—and it was a question for me.

There was no way I was going to look up those stairs, and as I reached for my sister, she scrambled up and sat on my lap. We both stared straight ahead while we waited for my mom to finish her shower. After we heard the door open and her footsteps coming down the hall (about 10 minutes later), I was finally able to move. I carried my sister up the stairs and asked my mom if she had called me. She obviously said no—how could she? And she was right; there was no way it could’ve been her. My stepdad was still asleep.

The voice had been a woman’s. After explaining the whole situation to my mom, it dawned on me: The voice sounded familiar because it was my own.

My mom was brought to tears just by hearing the story and seeing how affected my sister and I were. She immediately believed us.

This wasn’t the last time we heard that voice, either. My mom often calls me to let me know she’s heard my voice calling for her, but saying words I’d never use or things I wouldn’t say—things like ‘Mommy’ or ‘I need help.’ I don’t live in that house anymore, I’m rarely there, and I haven’t called my mother ‘Mommy’ since I was a child.

When I did still live there, though, I would often hear my name. Once, I even heard myself say, ‘Bless you,’ after I sneezed. Sometimes it was just whistling, or the low pitch of myself humming tunes I never knew.

And it was always in that same, distant voice.

My mom likes to joke about it now, warning any future partners or roommates that they absolutely don’t want to live with me because, in her words, I’m ‘followed’ by something. I’m starting to believe her. Things have happened to me since I was a kid, but I always brushed them off—maybe shared them with a few friends—and moved on.

I don’t think I’ve ever moved on from this encounter, though. And I don’t think I’ll ever escape the sound of my own voice.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/torremotumbo on 2024-11-05 23:16:15+00:00.

---

Click here to read part 1.

This post will be a bit shorter than the first two, but I am confident of what I need to do next and will keep on updating you guys until I get to the bottom of the situation.I feel as if finding and listening to these songs has unleashed some kind of evil presence into my life. Whatever it is, it’s been haunting me in ways that become more obvious and frequent with time. At home, I constantly find things out of place that I know I didn’t move, things like my keys, books and frames fall to the floor with no explanation, the smoke alarm has gone off a couple of times and I’ve been experiencing sleep paralysis pretty much every night.

Worst of all, I hear noises of something or someone moving around in my house. This happens at all hours of the day - I hear things in plain daylight and they also wake me up in the middle of the night. I’ve searched the house multiple times but there’s never any evidence of anyone having been there other than me.

It all sounds so cliché - hell, I’ve even thought about bringing a priest over, even though I’m not a very religious person. I don’t know what to do other than trying to get to the bottom of where this music comes from.

I previously mentioned how the songs that I found in the old USB have been changing in different ways - in order to gain some clarity and assurance, I decided to do some formal testing of the different mutations that I have noticed so far.

Despite my analytical and technological limitations, I’ve tried to be as scientific as possible and the results have been undeniably unnatural. I should mention that the results I’ll be posting will be limited. I do not want to get into any legal issues with the university, or worse, to reveal my identity. Having said that, I am willing to take a few small liberties because as far as I know, these songs have not been formally published and I have not found anything online regarding the origins of the project.

First I focused on the issue of time. As you know, the songs have been changing in length - I did some tests with two different computers to isolate and explore the issue in more detail. I transferred one of the songs that had been changing the most with an external drive from my laptop to the main computer that is used in the university’s recording studio. I’m friends with the engineer there and he helped me to set up an A/B comparison.

In all my days of being around recording sessions, I had never been so terrified by the idea of an A/B.

Normally I love these. They are usually set up for exciting and interesting comparisons between two different takes, mixes or masters. You can really get a sense of the incredible depth that lies below the surface of sound and how small differences can have profound emotional impact on the listening experience. Sometimes, whether a song is truly great comes down to the tiniest bit of difference in certain levels or frequencies. Sound is a beautiful and deep thing that I’ve always thought to be sacred, but this is something else. This is about something profane and corrupted. I opened the exact same file with the same audio software on both computers and set their playback markers to zero and pressed play on both computers at the same time. Nothing out of the ordinary happened - the songs played normally and were in sync. I tried with a few more songs from the folder, but everything seemed to be ok. I wasn’t about to give up.

I went back and played the songs again from the top. Multiple times. Nothing.

It was getting late. I could tell that my friend was growing impatient, especially since I was purposefully vague about what I was looking for. I didn’t feel like I could just come out and say what I was testing for without sounding like a complete nut job. He was beginning to worm around in his seat and sighing loudly. After a few minutes, he said he was going to check out for the night but that I could stay back and continue looking for whatever it was I needed to find. He gave me instructions on how to turn off the studio equipment and lock up. He wished me luck and headed out.

Things changed almost immediately after he left - I started to feel very uneasy and anxious. I was the only person left at the studio and there was a heaviness in the air that hadn’t been there before. I tried to distract myself by continuing my tests. I wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible. That’s when it happened.

One of the songs I had previously tested started to phase out, as if they were recorded at different speeds.

I quickly stopped the tracks and played a different track (some generic beat I found online) in order to make sure that it wasn’t a sample rate issue or anything of the sort. That played fine. But something else happened again that has been freaking me out since a few days ago. The green light belonging to the front facing camera of my laptop turned on. It’s happened a few times already and I never have any other programs opened that would even use the camera. I quickly put some tape over the camera and thought about what to do next. I could go home, or I could continue with the tests to see if I found anything else. I decided to stay a bit longer since it’s not like going home would be any more comforting.

I imported another song on both computers and pressed play. This time the rhythm wasn’t phasing, but I began to hear something I hadn’t heard before coming from the speakers that made my blood curdle - it was screaming. It wasn’t very clear so I put up the master volume on the console and leaned in a bit closer. It wasn’t just one voice. It was like a choir of screaming voices. They were starting to get louder.

I tried to stop both tracks but neither keyboard was responding. I brought down the fader on the console but it wasn’t responding either - the volume became so oppressively loud that I had to cover my ears.

Then I remembered there was a power switch for the speakers on the wall. I quickly ran toward it and flipped the switch. I almost wish I hadn’t.

The music immediately stopped but the screaming continued - this time inside the building. It was coming from right outside the main studio room. As soon as I exited the studio, the screams stopped.

To my left, I heard a door shut very loudly - It was the basement door.

I stared at it for a bit, placed my hand on the handle and slowly opened it.

I saw the stairs leading down into the basement. I started walking down slowly.

Looking back, I know I was acting incredibly carelessly. But in the moment, I was in a kind of trance.

Completely possessed by my need for answers. Reaching the basement floor, I looked around and tried to hear for any movement. There was a very specific kind of silence that felt like “less than nothing”.

The best way I can describe it is like a very faint “white noise” that was all around me. Like when you record silence on to tape and listen back at a very loud level - a kind of negative hiss.

I turned to the table where I had been working and saw the computer there. Something came over me. A cold sweat. I couldn’t move or breathe. I knew that something was there in the room and was trying to communicate with me, or manipulate me.

It felt as if the air was sucked out of the room when I remembered two things.

One, that when I first attempted to listen to the song on the computer, I could only hear white noise.

Two, that amongst all the equipment in the basement, I had found an old oscilloscope that was in working order.

I had received the message - a weight was lifted off of me and I could move again. I can’t describe where the urge came from to do what I did next. It felt as if the thought had been put in my mind by a demon.

I grabbed the oscilloscope from one of the rooms and connected it to the old computer’s headphone output. I turned it on and went to the only folder it contained. I then played the track in it, so that the noise would feed into the oscilloscope. Its screen started to show what normal white noise looks like, except in its distinctive green color. I wasn’t at all sure what I was looking for, but I started to turn the fine tune knobs on it to see what would happen. I think the white noise began to change because I noticed that an image began to take form. I leaned in closer to the screen to try to make sense of it. I kept on messing with the knobs until the image became as clear as possible. What I saw in that oscilloscope screen will haunt me for the rest of my days.

It was an image of my mother.

The witch has been dead for years.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Street_Camera_1258 on 2024-11-06 15:11:54+00:00.

---

Hello,

Let me start by saying I don't believe in curses and I am not religious. My name is Doug, and my wife and I have struggled with our son. He has sleep problems that just came from nowhere. It all started one night, it was only a week or so ago, on the night of the first rainfall, we live in a pretty small eastern coastal town of Briggem, so when it rains it can get pretty bad. I was at my home watching reruns of Miami Vice, while my wife was getting dinner ready. We live in my childhood home, a single story. I had our youngest daughter in her walker. When the rain started to hit the window.

That was when Charlotte and I realized we didn't know where Finn, our 10-year-old was. We called all over from his friends' parents to the school. No one knew. My wife started to blame me, while I was getting my coat on to go - at this point, I was a few beers down the chute when I opened the door ignoring my wife's rant - and there he was. He stood there on the front step, drenched. I don't know how long he was there or what I just took my son in and hugged him. I carried him inside and put a towel around him, trying to warm him up. My wife started to draw a bath, through her cloudy eyes. I asked him where he was and why no one knew where he went.

He just said, "I wanted to go to the woods." I didn't find anything wrong with this, I used to go to the same woods all the time when I was a kid with my brother and with friends.

"Near the creek?"

He nodded.

"Did you see anything?"

My boy just looked up at me his blue lips barely hanging onto his face and shook his head.

"Something red."

I didn't know what the hell that meant so I helped walk him over to the bathroom where my wife was and she started to take care of him. I just walked back towards the family room, aghast at what I allowed to happen. I didn't know what to do so I just thanked whoever was listening in my head.

My wife and I knew that he was probably going to get a cold or something worse from this, so we kept an ear open and barely slept ourselves that night. His coughs kept us up as we took shifts while sitting nearby. Some were empty like a wheeze scratching the walls of his throat while they escaped, others were full of gunk and sludge, followed by him rolling over and spitting the excess in the nearby trashcan. It was around 5 am when I tapped my wife out, letting her go to sleep for an hour or so. I sat there after brewing some coffee and listened to Finn go through hell. In Times like this it's good to have a wife who's as caring as Charlotte, when I have to go to work, I know that she will be here with my kids. I was slightly nodding off around 5:30 before I awoke. Something was off, I didn't know why yet but I could feel it.

That was when it hit me. I was dozing off because the house was silent. I jumped up from my seat and ran into my son's room. The door slammed against the wall as I dove at my son fearing the worst. Swearing at myself for not taking him to the emergency room. But, as I got to him I realized his chest moving up and down. He was fine. He was better than fine, he looked as peaceful as ever sleeping. Lying on his side, his left hand under his head. Even my landing on him barely made him budge. I scratched my head looking around. When I looked in his garbage off the edge of the bed, where I imagined seeing a mound of phlegm and mucus but nothing was in there. Nothing at all. Thinking I lost my mind I just shook my head and walked out of his room. Over a day or so Finn was all back to normal health and at school.

A few nights later, it happened. I got up out of bed around 1 am, I was the one having trouble that night. I walked into our kitchen and opened the fridge, reaching into the case and opening the tab on the side so it wouldn't crack too loud and wake my wife. I took a long sip of it, following it with a loud breath. The cool lager put my mind at ease as I turned from the fridge - he stood there. Half covered by the door frame he watched me. I put the can behind my back, failing to hide what he clearly already saw.

"What's up, buddy?"

"Why do you drink so late Dad?"

I just shrugged bringing the tone down in the conversation to again not wake my wife. I put my finger up to my mouth to shush him a little. I opened my mouth to try to answer -

"Do you drink because of Kevin?"

My answer got caught in my throat before it could exit. He blinked at me - twice. Then he turned around and went into his room. Leaving me speechless. I could only clench my teeth together, hidden behind my cheeks. I drank the last bit of my beer and couldn't help but open another.

I barely told Finn about Kevin. I barely told Charlotte. I kept it in my head, and just with my parents. I still never understood. Kevin was my little brother. I don't know if I wanted to get into it. But, over the last few nights, I need to talk about it. See Finn has gotten worse, not coughing or anything he hasn't been right. He just hasn't slept, at all. It was bad, Charlotte found him one night, she checked on him just slipping her head through the cracked door. He was in bed, but sitting straight up. Staring at the wall, he didn't even turn to her when she called him. He was in a trance, mouth open, his breathing in deep and out shallow. She ran over to him, rubbing his back his breathing got better but his eyes stayed on the wall. When she came to our room and told me, I had nothing to say, I chalked it up to maybe a horror show or movie he caught when we weren't paying attention. I told her that I was going to check on him as she got into bed, I left my room but on my way to his something overtook me. I couldn't have him ask more about Kevin, at least not yet.

I turned into my kitchen and grabbed my bottle of vodka from above the fridge and walked out into my garage. I only took a few pulls, but it was hard to keep down, I got so used to just beer. I walked into my home after getting a good bit of the bottle down. I put it back grabbed the OJ carton out of the fridge, and took a few sips out of it. That's when I heard the giggling coming from the crack of Finn's room. It was light and soft, but it creeped the hell out of me. I decided to try to look in the room myself, the dark room was only lit by the window above his bed. But, he wasn't in it. The sheets and covers were thrown to the side. Then I heard the giggles, there were two of them. My head whipped over towards my right where Finn stood by his wall. I turned to the lights on in fear, as Finn slowly turned to me. I looked in the room for a second.

"Go to bed, Finn."

He nodded and slowly walked back to his bed. I shut off the light after taking one more look in the room. I couldn't sleep that night. Not a minute. Because, before I turned his lights on, I could have sworn I saw a hand reaching and touching my son's face.

The next morning I was out and about I forgot what for, but on my way home I saw the flashing lights. I saw the ambulance rush past me out of my neighborhood. I feared the worst and sped home. I found my wife on the porch, crying on the phone. I jumped out of the car and held her asking her what happened.

She told me this verbatim: She was doing laundry, and our daughter was in the living room bouncing. She went to bring folded laundry into Finn's room, hoping that he was napping and catching some sleep. She didn't even knock; she just barely opened it - she saw him in there. She saw our boy standing in the center of his room, arched backward, his head almost touching his calves. She couldn't breathe, as Finn's right arm started to rise in the air, that's when she noticed that he wasn't standing. His feet were inches off the ground. When she screamed that was when he fell.

I just took my wife into my arms. Holding her there, confused as all hell. Hoping this one moment could last forever before we would have to find out what was wrong with our boy, by her words he had to be paralyzed with a broken back. I then ushered her into the car, running back inside and grabbing our baby girl. Before we were off to the hospital.

So, now it's time to talk about my brother Kevin. I think it's time that I bring up Kevin. Kevin was my younger brother, he was only 8 years old when he got sick. At first, it came off as the flu, he was bedridden and only missed a few days of school. I remember it like it was yesterday because frankly, it was all so odd. Kevin got home late the day before his sickness. He was always a sprite and fun kid, always looking for an adventure even at a young age. I always took him places too, because he could keep up with 13-year-old me on any bike ride. He had this gummy smile and an infatuation with Superman.

We weren't rich or anything growing up, so my mom had bought him a cheap cape from a hand-me-down store. For the next year, he always wore that cape, while he was biking down to his friend Anthony's house, I remember it always flailing in the wind as if he were flying in the air.

After he got sick, I don't remember him putting it on ever again. He came home that day. From what I remember my mother telling me, rest her soul, that he walked into the house for the first time in complete silence. He got ready for bed without eating anything, and that was it. In that bed, he stayed for days. I would always knock to see if he wanted to do anything and he would refuse. During those days, I started to feel off. I woke up one night in complete sweat, confu...

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Content cut off. Read original on https://old.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/1gl0pz0/my_child_hasnt_been_sleeping/

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/justpizzacate on 2024-11-06 03:21:21+00:00.

---

I moved into my new apartment a few weeks ago, just looking for a fresh start after a rough breakup. The building was old, the kind that creaked when you walked and seemed to hold onto sounds. But it was cheap, and the neighborhood was quiet, so I figured I could deal with a few quirks.

On my first night, as I lay down in bed, I heard footsteps from the apartment above me. I thought nothing of it at first; it's an apartment building, after all, and you expect a certain amount of noise. But these footsteps didn’t have the usual random pattern you’d expect from someone moving around their home. They were rhythmic. Back and forth, back and forth. And it went on for hours, like someone pacing.

I tried to sleep, but the sound seeped into my brain and wouldn’t let go. By 3 a.m., I was still wide awake, staring at the ceiling and wondering what could possibly keep someone pacing like that for so long. The next morning, I asked the building manager about the tenant above me. He looked at me, puzzled.

“No one’s lived up there in years,” he said. “We haven’t been able to rent that unit since... well, there was an incident. People say it’s haunted.”

I laughed it off and chalked up the sounds to old building noises. I didn’t believe in ghosts, and the thought of “haunted apartments” felt a bit ridiculous. But the footsteps continued every night, always the same slow, methodical pacing. And then, about a week in, I heard something else.

It was just past midnight, and the pacing had started as usual. I lay in bed, trying to ignore it, when suddenly the footsteps stopped. And then I heard a faint, muffled voice. It was low and indecipherable, like someone was trying to speak through a thick wall. I froze, my heart pounding. I couldn’t make out what it was saying, but it was definitely a voice. A man’s voice, muttering… something.

The next morning, I asked my next-door neighbor if he’d heard the noises too. He looked at me, and his face went pale.

“You hear it too?” he asked, almost whispering. “I thought it was just me. I asked the manager about it a couple years ago, and he just told me to keep it down, that the building was old. But I’ve been here a while, and… sometimes, it sounds like someone’s crying up there.”

That was all he would say. After that, he avoided me in the hall, never making eye contact.

The pacing continued every night, and sometimes, I could hear that muffled voice. I even tried recording it with my phone, but whenever I played it back, all I heard was static. My dreams were getting worse too, filled with images of dark rooms and shadowy figures. It felt like I was being watched, like something was slowly wrapping itself around me, suffocating me.

Then, last night, everything changed.

I’d fallen asleep around midnight, only to be jolted awake by a loud thud directly above me. I lay there, staring at the ceiling, barely breathing. The pacing had started again, but this time, it was faster, more frantic. And then I heard that voice—clearer than ever before.

“Help me.”

It was a whisper, but so close I could almost feel the breath against my ear. I shot up, grabbing my phone for some kind of comfort. I was about to call the building manager when the footsteps stopped. Dead silence filled the room.

And then… a knock. Directly above my bed.

I sat there, frozen, as the knock sounded again. Three slow, deliberate knocks. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. I just stared up at the ceiling, waiting. Then I heard a creak—the sound of a door opening upstairs. But that didn’t make sense. No one lived up there.

With my heart pounding, I forced myself to stand. I don’t know why, but I had to see for myself. I had to know. I walked out of my apartment and up the stairs, every step heavy with dread. The door to the apartment above me was slightly ajar, and I could see a dim light spilling out from the crack.

I pushed it open slowly, and my eyes adjusted to the darkness. The apartment was empty, cold, and bare, with dust blanketing every surface. But as I stepped inside, I noticed something on the floor: footprints, in the dust, leading from the door to a corner of the room. And in that corner, the air felt… wrong, like it was thicker somehow, filled with an overwhelming sense of despair.

I heard the voice again, right next to me, soft and pleading. “Help me.”

I ran. I didn’t look back. I bolted down the stairs, back into my apartment, and locked the door behind me. But as I turned, I saw it—something I’ll never be able to unsee.

There, standing in the corner of my bedroom, was a figure. Dark, unmoving, with eyes that seemed to burn into my soul. And then, in a voice barely above a whisper, it spoke.

“Help me. Or take my place.”

I don’t know what to do. I don’t know if I’m going insane. But every night, I can still hear it—the pacing above, the whispering, the knock. And every night, it’s getting closer.

If anyone is reading this, please—tell me I’m not alone. Tell me… tell me what I should do. Because I’m terrified that if I don’t help it, I might just become it.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Waste-Land-98 on 2024-11-06 13:16:06+00:00.

---

Übermensch - Above or Beyond man

To William Ernest Lex Jacobi. My Brother.

If you're reading this, I am in prison. An anonymous contact has sent you this letter and a lead-encased box. Here, they don't call me by name. My prisoner number is 181938. Sometimes, I wonder who allowed me to be alive today. Was it the judge, the law, the jury of my peers, destiny, God... or him?

We used to rule Manhattan, my brother. Our inherited wealth was enough to expand the empire that Father built. At first, I felt it was a shame that you chose science over our father's vision. But now, I am proud of you for getting that scholarship to a prestigious university. Since the day He took to the skies like a lightning bolt, our criminal empire has fallen. Gangs no longer run the streets and the Manhattan underworld is unrecognizable.

But my brother, this letter isn't about me brooding what I've lost. What if I told you that I made a god bleed?

You're not better than I am, brother. So, don't make sanctimonious statements against me after you read this. I have seen your work on those dishonest debtors. How you had this obsession of creating a perfect man or perhaps... you are trying to become one.

The bodies, the blood, the brains in the basement. Father was more merciful to them than you were.

I can almost see the look on your face, the flush of envy spreading as you read these words. Now everyone knows the perfect man exists—and it isn’t you. You, pale with that furious little tic in your jaw. Go on, let the hatred simmer, the anger gnaw at you. Maybe it’ll even give you the strength I didn’t have.

You might be wondering how I managed to get involved in a scuffle with a god. So let me take you back to a few months ago when our empire... scratch that. MY EMPIRE was at its peak. Father was long dead, rest his soul. The outer circle of our vast criminal network only knows me as Baal. I fashioned myself after the Canaanite god, exuding a sense of power and a little bit of flamboyance. Because who could judge us? Who could stop us?

There was this journalist... I couldn't remember her name. Was it Laurie? Lana? Lois? Such things slipped my mind, but it started with an L. 

So let's say, Miss L. 

She was incessant and annoying. The police on my payroll tried to pay her off to look the other way. But she refused. She went around digging where she shouldn't be. She wanted to be a "hero" who would expose Manhattan for the crime-ridden city it is. She knows this "clean" city is putting up a façade.

So I planned to kidnap her. She was attending a gala hosted by her workplace. For a woman as beautiful and feisty as Miss L, she was quite the loner. So, I had my men approach her and invite her to the car. We pulled out our knives in a subtle manner for extra persuasion. A nerdy, milquetoast man came close to spotting us. He said we were making the woman uncomfortable. I put my arm over his shoulder and told him I would buy him coffee for a talk. He took the bait, and my men took Miss L for a ride. It was a short talk for that nerd. He refused my fifty-grand offer to avoid trouble, but Miss L had already left him.

I took another car and went back home. Miss L had been waiting for me... in the basement, tied up and surrounded by my men like a feast of pigs. I gave her one last offer, but she spat in my face and refused.

So, I wanted to make an example of her. You were not around then, my brother. So, forgive me for rummaging through your laboratory. One of the oddities I found was a green scalpel. I could've picked a jackknife or any ordinary blade. But, I picked your favorite scalpel. I saw you cut through bones with it. 

Perfect!

As I was about to carve the fucking reporter like a pumpkin, he came.

He stood above me at the top of the stairs, Vasiliy’s limp body dangling from his grip. Vasiliy, a six-foot mountain man of fat and muscle, hung like a ragdoll, utterly helpless in the hands of this Übermensch.

My men didn’t hesitate; they raised their rifles and aimed their pistols. First, there was a click. Then, there was gunfire. But he just stood there as the bullets bounced off him like harmless raindrops. Then this demon, draped in shadow, laughed. He laughed, my brother, mocking me and my men.

Then his eyes flared. A deep crimson glow, like something straight from hell.

Our guns melted like slag, and we had to throw them away lest we burn our palms. The hiss and smell of burning metal filled the air as I stumbled back, bolting toward your laboratory.

I slammed the steel doors shut and ducked behind rows of your “Perfect Man” experiments—still, silent corpses on gurneys, their faces half-done, some mouths stitched shut. The air reeked of formaldehyde and something else, something rotten. You were never merciful, brother; I see that now, surrounded by the remnants of your “work.” I heard muffled screams through the door as he made his way with my men.

For a heartbeat, silence. 

Metal screeched as he tore through five hundred pounds of bulletproof steel. The door buckled like cardboard, and there he was. His demon eyes pierced through me, burning red-hot. He wasn’t here to speak; he was here to end me.

"Weapons, yes," I thought to myself.

My hand shot out, finding a lever on the wall, hoping for a weapon, anything. I yanked it down and the lights cut out. The room was black, except for those relentless, crimson eyes.

A surge of electricity flowed through the morgue. Then, there were sounds of stone scraping against flesh.

I awakened your "Perfect Men."

I heard the groans and mumbles of men supposed to be dead. Only the faint shuffle of feet and low, guttural groans grew louder as they closed in. The Übermensch was silent and still, a predator waiting. His glowing eyes were the only pinpoints of light.

A Perfect Man lunged, fists swinging with bone-crushing force. The room swallowed them back into shadow, leaving only the shuffle of fighting and the sound of ragged breathing until—flash!

A flare of light ripped through the dark, illuminating the chaos for a split second, as the Übermensch's eyes ignited, sending a wave of red flame through the air. The Perfect Men writhed and twisted, some of them catching fire as they advanced. One lunged through the searing heat, landing a powerful blow to the Übermensch's jaw. The sound of impact reverberated through the room. For the first time, the Übermensch staggered, stunned but unhurt.

Another Perfect Man tackled him like a freight train. They crashed to the concrete floor and rolled in the dark. I saw the undead clawing at the Übermensch's throat. Their hands, straining with monstrous strength, tried to choke him.

Flash! His eyes blazed again, shooting searing red fire across the room. The Perfect Man choking the Übermensch staggered back, smoke rising from his face. Yet, he lunged forward, refusing to relent. Two others joined, attacking in tandem. The Übermensch swung his arm like they were made of steel. It cracked their undead ribs and flung one into the wall. But the others surged on, clawing and punching, using their bodies as weapons. The darkness swallowed them whole again, leaving only grunts and the clash of fists.

The caped demon snarled, grabbing the attacker by the head and twisting sharply. But as that Perfect Man fell, another one grabbed the Übermensch's arm, twisting it backward. Another slammed into his ribs with enough force to crack stone. They fought like cornered beasts. Relentless and mindless, they were driven only by whatever spark of life animated them. The Übermensch's red eyes glowed even brighter, and he let out a laugh—a cruel, taunting laugh—as he wrenched free, flinging two of them across the room in one motion.

The entire room is on fire now. The blaze should be enough to consume the Übermensch and the monsters you created, brother. I climbed up a ladder and escaped into the garden. But he was there, waiting for me.

His hands held the twisted, lifeless bodies of the Perfect Men. He scattered them across the floor like broken dolls.

"Where do you think you can go that I cannot follow you?" said the Übermensch.

I was desperate, my brother.

What was the point of going up against someone you knew you could never escape, who could take you apart with just a thought?

This was the moment I fought a god.

Ever since I was a child, I saw that the world was ugly. So I hurt it. I hurt again, and again, and again. They begged, they screamed, they bled, they died. But this was different, he was not concerned about what I was going to do. And I understand that. I know it was useless. I know I was a dead man.

So I pulled out your green scalpel and I stabbed him in the eye. The blade pierced through with a sickening pop. The god screamed in pain. His voice tore through the air, a guttural, raw sound that almost destroyed my ears.

His hand shot up, gripping the scalpel, his fingers closing over it like a vise. With a twist, he crushed it into splinters, fragments of green metal scattering to the floor. I didn’t wait to see the rage in his one good eye—I spun around, legs pounding as I bolted for the back gate, heart hammering, his furious roars chasing me into the darkness.

I flung open the gate, breathless, only to freeze. He was already there, a shadow stretching across the ground in the faint light, blocking my escape.

He cocked his head, one hand resting loosely at his side, the other dripping blood from where the scalpel had bitten. H...

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This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/WarFrequent on 2024-11-06 07:30:00+00:00.

---

Ever since her husband died, my grandma has had a string of lovers. They all have old timey names (Gerald, Basil), and dress similarly (Shirt, Jumper, Chinos), so for us they all merge into one.

This said, she often gets a little over attached. She keeps trinkets from her boyfriends about her house. A bracelet one of them bought her. A plastic rose placed in an old wine bottle from a weekend vacation. Even a toothbrush one left after staying over. 

We beg her to throw these items out, but she likes to have them as comforts. She says it like all her lovers are still with her. 

It is always the men who do the dumping. Most have had a life of commitment and want now, in their old age, to try promiscuity. But every dumping wrecks my grandma. She won’t leave the house for days and declines our calls. If we visit her house on the day of the dumping, we find she’s often still in her nightie, with her hair distraught and tear streaks upon her face.

Despite this, we always look forward to the dumping because it means Grandma will make her special Shepherd's pie. She has a talent, our Grandma, for Shepherd’s pie. She could package it up as some sort of ready meal and would be a millionaire within a week. 

When she announces that she will be making her special Shepherd's pie, we usually buy a fancy bottle of wine and head over there after work with our daughters. We light candles. It is a happy, special occasion. She always makes too much food, so we leave with tubs of the stuff and eat it reheated throughout the week.

She says the shepherd’s pie has become a bit of a ritual for her now. Like she is finally saying goodbye to the lover and can move on with her life. She is certainly much happier after her shepherd’s pie night. But soon enough we know she will have a new boyfriend.

Her most recent boyfriend - Albert - was a little stranger than the rest. 

For one, he loved rings. He had rings on every finger, sometimes two or three. He had a story for all of them. One he had found while cleaning a sewage works in London. Another he had acquired from an old priest who told him the ring was stolen from Byzantium and possessed evil spirits. My daughters loved these stories and always asked him to tell them again. He bought my grandma several rings, all of them beautiful, and for a month or so, she wore at least one everywhere.

This is not the strange part though. The strange part was that he never wished to enter Grandma’s house. We only ever met him at pubs or restaurants and if he was over at Grandma’s house, he would only ever sit in the garden. When Grandma cooked dinner, she opened the kitchen window and they conversed through it. If he ever needed the toilet, he would go back to his own house (he lived close) and do his business there.

We never quite understood why he did this. He said he wanted to take it slow, but this behaviour went on for almost a month. We encountered him one time at the supermarket, where he was buying potatoes and cheese. We recognised the cheese, so we thought that she would be making her signature shepherd’s pie. We told him he was in for a treat. But he told us he had never heard of that shepherd’s pie. 

The next day - literally the very next day - they broke up. We received the regular phone call, my grandma in tears, and we cancelled the restaurant we had booked for Sunday dinner. It took around a week for her to arrange a shepherd’s pie evening, but sure enough, she rang us on a Thursday and we set off Friday evening with a bottle of wine and our daughters. 

Everybody was in a good mood. We all did the middle finger salute to Albert’s house, and ate heaps of shepherd’s pie. Nothing really of note happened here. We finished our meal - it was delicious, as always - and grandma gave us a Tupperware of leftovers to take home. 

On the drive home, one of my daughters was giggling in the backseat. What is it, we asked, and she showed us a small signet ring. One of Albert’s. Knowing how much grandma treasures the little trinkets from our lovers, we were naturally horrified. We hated the idea that our daughter had snuck into grandma’s rooms and pinched one of these rings. But then she told us, through giggles, that she had found the ring in the shepherd’s pie. This set our other daughter off. Both of them were laughing and shrieking with amusement. Grandma cooked Albert! they chanted. Grandma cooked Albert!

I, of course, know this can’t be the case. Grandma’s old and doddery, and she could very well have accidentally baked a ring into the mince meat while preparing the shepherd’s pie. But I’m uncertain. When my husband reheated the shepherd’s pie tonight, I couldn’t bring myself to eat it. He told me I was being ridiculous, but the thought of eating it makes me feel sick.

But what does everybody else think. Am I being ridiculous? Or should I look into this more?

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Trick_Juggernaut135 on 2024-11-06 05:02:15+00:00.

---

When my wife and I had our first baby, we didn’t think twice about getting a video baby monitor. It gave us peace of mind to be able to check on her from bed, especially during those first few months when sleep was a luxury. It worked fine, a little fuzzy here and there, but reliable. At least, that’s what I thought—until a week ago.

One night, around 2 a.m., I woke up and decided to check the monitor. The screen was unusually static-filled, but I could still see our daughter, Rose, lying in her crib. Her tiny chest was rising and falling, and I felt that rush of relief, knowing she was okay. But as I was about to put it down, something in the bottom right corner of the screen caught my attention.

There was movement. Just outside the frame, almost like someone was… standing there. I could only make out a faint shadow, but it looked like the figure was facing the crib. My first thought was that I was just tired, seeing things, so I rubbed my eyes and stared at the screen again.

The shadow was gone, but there was something new: faint text on the screen, barely visible through the static. I thought maybe it was a glitch, but as I squinted, I could make out the words: “Can you see me?”

My stomach dropped. I stared at the monitor, trying to make sense of it, telling myself it was just a trick of the light, maybe interference from another device. I was about to set it down when Rose suddenly stirred, her little legs kicking. The static faded just enough that I could see her eyes open slightly, looking… somewhere past the crib, as if she was staring right at someone standing next to it.

I flew out of bed and rushed to her room. I opened the door, flipped on the light, and found her lying in her crib, looking up at me, wide awake. I checked every inch of the room, feeling ridiculous but unable to shake the feeling that someone had been there. I found nothing.

The next few nights were quiet, and I convinced myself it had been some weird technical issue. But then, last night, something happened that I still can’t explain.

It was 3 a.m. this time. The monitor was already on my nightstand, so I grabbed it, not fully awake, just doing my usual check. At first, everything looked fine, but then I saw the static start to thicken, almost like smoke, swirling around the crib. My heart began to pound, but I kept watching, too afraid to look away.

Then, clear as day, I saw it: words again, like they were burned into the screen.

“Why did you move me?”

My skin went cold. I hadn’t moved her. Her crib had always been in the same spot. But then something clicked. Before Rose was born, we’d moved her crib from one side of the room to the other, closer to the window.

Trying to keep myself calm, I went to her room and found her asleep, undisturbed. I checked every corner, but again, no sign of anything out of place. I thought about waking my wife, but what would I even say?

Now I don’t know what to think. I want to believe it’s just a faulty monitor, maybe even my sleep-deprived brain playing tricks. But every night since, I keep hearing that same question in my mind: “Why did you move me?”

And I can’t help but feel like we weren’t the first to set up a crib in that room.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/jay33d on 2024-11-06 04:19:17+00:00.

---

I thought it was a prank when I found the door. Nothing in my apartment building had ever stood out, not in the three years I’d lived here. So, when I discovered a new laundry room at the end of my floor’s hallway, I was more confused than anything.

The door was heavy, old-looking, with a metal handle worn smooth. It shouldn’t have been there. Our laundry room was on the basement level, and I knew every inch of this hallway. But that night, after a double shift at work, I was too exhausted to argue with my own curiosity.

The door groaned as I pushed it open, and I swear it smelled like burnt plastic mixed with something sweet and rotten, like fruit left out in the sun. I don’t know why I walked in, or why I didn’t turn around when I felt a wave of nausea hit. All I know is that, in one step, everything changed.

I wasn’t in my building anymore.

The air felt heavier, thicker, and the walls were grimy, covered in streaks of something dark and sticky. It was the same hallway layout, but the colors were off, a sickly yellow cast that came from dim, buzzing lights overhead. I didn’t recognize anything, but part of me thought it was a weird dream, that maybe I’d fallen asleep in the hallway.

Then I saw the first person.

A woman shuffled out of a nearby door, her face gaunt, with deep sunken eyes and skin so pale it looked like paper. Her clothes were rags, hanging off her like they were too heavy. She looked at me with empty, hollow eyes, then tilted her head. I took a step back, instinctively.

“You got any spare?” she croaked, her voice barely a whisper.

“Spare…?” I stammered.

“Something to trade,” she replied, her eyes flicking to a bundle in her arms. I hadn’t noticed it before—a small, wriggling shape wrapped in what looked like dirty towels. I realized with a sickening jolt that it was a baby, crying weakly.

I backed away, horrified. “I—I don’t have anything. I don’t even know where I am.”

Her mouth twisted into a snarl, and I took off down the hallway, heart pounding in my ears. The world outside my building should have been the familiar street view, but instead, the sky was an unnatural shade of red, casting an eerie glow over everything. It was Willsborough, all right—there was the old gas station at the end of the road—but everything was in ruins. Crumbling buildings lined the street, graffiti scrawled in languages I didn’t recognize, and trash piled high in the gutters. The smell was worse out here, like decay.

As I wandered, it became clear that this wasn’t my town. At least, not anymore.

Everywhere I looked, people were bartering strange, twisted items for things I couldn’t comprehend: scraps of plastic, chunks of rusted metal, jars filled with what looked like teeth. The worst was when I saw a man in a tattered suit hand over a wailing infant to another man in exchange for a small vial filled with a thick, amber liquid. The man held it up to the light and took a long, savoring sip, his eyes closing in satisfaction.

I must have stared too long, because he looked at me, his eyes narrowing. I ducked around the corner, my mind racing. This couldn’t be real. This was… some kind of nightmare, right?

But then I saw my own reflection in a broken store window, and it was me—tired, terrified, wearing my work uniform and clutching my phone like a lifeline. It was all real.

As I stumbled further into this nightmarish version of my town, I noticed a group of people huddled around a street corner, murmuring in low voices. One of them saw me and nudged the others. They all turned at once, like a pack of animals catching the scent of prey. Their faces were gaunt, their skin stretched tight over their bones. The tallest of them grinned, his teeth sharpened to points.

“Fresh meat,” he rasped, and they began to approach me slowly, like they were savoring the moment.

I backed away, ready to bolt, but they were faster than they looked. One of them lunged, grabbing my arm in a vice grip. I struggled, feeling his claws dig into my skin as he pulled me closer, his breath hot and sour against my neck. I kicked, thrashed, anything to get free, but the others circled me, their eyes hungry.

Just as I felt his teeth graze my skin, there was a bright, blinding flash.

Then… I was back in the hallway. The normal one, outside my apartment door.

I scrambled back, my chest heaving as I looked around, but everything was just as it should be. The peeling wallpaper, the faint hum of the heater, the soft fluorescent light. No sickly yellow glow, no smell of decay. Just… home.

But there was something wrong.

My arm was still bleeding from where the man had grabbed me, deep red lines seeping through my shirt. I touched it, half-expecting it to be gone, just a phantom pain from the nightmare. But it hurt—badly. And then, I noticed the smell. That same sickly sweet odor from the laundry room, lingering around me.

I thought I’d escaped, that I was safe. But when I went to type this all out, my phone pinged with a notification.

It was a message from an unknown number. I clicked it open, hands shaking.

“We know you’re here.”

Another notification buzzed in.

“See you at 3:33.”

I dropped my phone. The screen stayed lit, the message glaring back at me, impossible to ignore. I don’t know what’s going to happen when the clock strikes 3:33. I’m afraid to find out.

And I don’t know if I’ll be here to tell you what happens next.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/niceynice876 on 2024-11-05 17:30:07+00:00.

---

I was forty thousand words into drafting my novel when it all turned to shit. I was trying to wrangle a cohesive draft from the sections spread out across notebooks, phone apps, half-written docs files, and scribbles on napkins, but I'd lost grip on what I found so exciting about the story and now it seemed thin and overwrought. My confidence had slipped just as much as my deadlines, and nothing I was doing to fix either was working. I was starting to dread sitting down at my laptop, feeling doubt and inertia gripping my fingers as I typed and deleted out sections that were too cliched, too obvious, simply not good enough.

One late night, scrolling distractedly through listings for secluded getaways, I found Briar House B&B, located in a sleepy retirement town about 3 hours away from the city. The photos showed a tall, wood-clad property with flower boxes at every window, surrounded by a wide, open lawn that bordered on evergreen forest. The listing boasted chef-prepared breakfasts, quiet rooms filled with antique furniture, and "a garden with whimsical touches" bordering on nothing but rolling hills and forest in the distance. The price was reasonable, and I figured if I stayed a couple of weeks, I might finally finish the book. And if I didn't . . . well, at least I'd have a quiet place to recharge completely and return to my draft with fresh eyes.

I drove away from home feeling excited for the first time in weeks, feeling the old tension being replaced with the energy of new potential coiled up inside my body. The roads became quieter and narrower as the city rolled away behind me, and as the pink light of dusk started to fall, I pulled into the gravel driveway of Briar House.

The first thing I noticed wasn't the floral-curtained house or the manicured lawns sprawling into the distance, but the hundreds of model houses. A village of scale replicas each a foot or so tall, with chalets, log cabins, and farmyard barns clustered around the bases of the trees, complete with tiny balconies and decks. Each one was meticulously painted and varnished in cheery colors with leafy plants, small rocks and mosses tucked in around them. Dribbling streams ran down piled rockeries where houses sat clustered on every simulated peak and valley, with orange lights shining from their tiny windows. There were even bird houses nailed to trees with vaulted roofs and tiny windows.

And then . . . I noticed the garden gnomes. Jolly-looking figures with rosy cheeks and pointed hats arranged all around the garden, nestled in ferns and posed under tree branches. Every type of gnome you could imagine were all there, from regular bearded gnomes, to younger ones with painted twinkles in their eyes, to gnomes dressed as chefs or doctors or farmers. Most of them looked happy and innocent, while others had a mischievous gleam in their eyes.

It was a kitsch paradise—charming, but also faintly unsettling. This was whimsical on a whole other level. Undoubtedly, this fairy kingdom was the labour of a lifetime, and I wondered what sort of person had created all of this—what sort of person would find this endearing and not remotely sinister.

I parked my car, feeling like I was being watched by hundreds of tiny eyes. I took a deep breath, put on my best polite smile, and walked toward the front door.

Before I reached the door, it opened and an older couple emerged, wide smiles creasing their kindly faces.

“Welcome to Briar House, dear!” the woman called, waving as she walked toward me. She was short and wiry, with grey curled hair and a floral apron tied around her waist. “You must be Jade! I’m Evelyn Hampton, and this is my husband, Robert.” She clasped my hand warmly with both hands as the man, tall and lean with thinning hair, nodded in greeting.

“We’re very pleased to have you,” he added. His voice was soft and slow, spoken as if he was savoring each word. “We don’t often have guests stay as long as two weeks. You’ll feel right at home, I’m sure.”

I smiled at him, imagining him painting each house with a look of intense concentration. “Thank you. The place is beautiful,” I replied, glancing around, though my gaze kept drifting back to the gnomes. Mrs Hampton caught my look and laughed quietly.

“I see you're admiring our little village!” she said with sparkling eyes. “It has a way of catching people’s attention. The gnomes keep an eye on things around here, don’t they, Robert?”

Robert nodded, his lips curling into a smile. “Yes, they do. They’re part of what makes Briar House so special.”

I tried not to make my laugh in response sound nervous, and followed them inside.

The inside of the house was much more kitsch than the photos had shown—lace tablecloths, floral prints, and everything delicately framed in faded pastels. My room was very quaint, with rose-print wallpaper and a crochet-blanketed bed that looked like it belonged in a story book. In one corner was an old-fashioned baby pram, and inside were two old-fashioned dolls staring up at me. The dolls had been arranged just so, in eyelet lace dresses with their china faces frozen in serene, eerie little smiles.

As they served up casserole and freshly baked bread, the Hamptons told me how Briar House had been their "special home" for 26 years now, and how the land had always been a place where “guests feel like they belong.” Robert proudly detailed all the work that had gone into creating the model village outside, and wryly complained about all the ongoing maintenance it needed. Evelyn talked about her love of hosting guests from all corners of the world, and happily took my order for breakfast the next day.

There was something a little unusual about the way they spoke, with pronounced pauses and each word spoken almost carefully, as if each phrase was being picked quite deliberately. Still, they came across as warm, if a little formal. Mrs Hampton wore a tiny gold crucifix, and they certainly seemed like straight-laced religious types—I couldn't imagine either of them angry, or cursing.

The dinner was delicious, and I fell asleep almost straight away when I collapsed on the bed upstairs.

The next morning, I woke up with a dull ache in my head and a heaviness in my limbs. I hoped it was just fatigue from travelling. I really didn't want to be getting sick—I had a nasty habit of falling ill as soon as I went on holiday, as if the moment my body slowed down, my defences also lowered. I dragged myself out of bed and headed downstairs for breakfast, where Mrs. Hampton was waiting. The table was laid meticulously with several sets of silver cutlery, gold-edged side plates, and a vase of fresh dahlias.

“Good morning, dear! How are you this morning?” she asked, patting my arm as she handed me a plate piled high with eggs, toast, and sausages. When I told her I had a bit of a headache, she almost instantly produced painkillers with a big glass of orange juice. “Eat up, every bite. A good breakfast is the best medicine.”

She was an attentive host, and insisted on changing the sheets on my bed every morning. I'd taken to leaving a cross-stitched cushion on top of the pram in my room each night to avoid feeling creeped out by the dolls' staring eyes, so I was careful to remove the cushion each morning and put it back in its place, to avoid offending Mrs Hampton.

That morning I sat down with my laptop in the garden, trying to ignore the heaviness in my limbs as I took in my surroundings. I’d come here to write, and the change of scenery was definitely an improvement on how boxed-in I was feeling within the walls of my city apartment. This place was beautiful—peculiar, but beautiful. The garden was full of blooming flowers, the leaves of the forest rustled in the breeze like the sound of distant waves, and light danced through the foliage. As I forced myself to write, the words finally seemed to be coming more easily.

By the third morning, though, an uncomfortable truth had become apparent: the gnomes were moving.

When I started noticing it I had tried to brush it off, telling myself that maybe I just hadn’t noticed where they were before. But this time was different. When I’d gone to bed, each gnome had been neatly arranged in clusters under the bushes and along the flower beds. But as I opened my curtains at dawn, I froze—the gnomes were lined up in a perfect row along the path in front of my room, and even though I was high above them it looked like they were looking towards my window, their tiny painted eyes staring up at me.

At first I thought it had to be some kind of prank, but I definitely couldn't imagine the Hamptons doing anything like that. I tried and failed to rationalize what I was seeing, so much so that I started doubting my own eyes, and I decided to go down to look closer. I crept down the stairs and out the front door, down to the path where they stood, arranged perfectly parallel with my bedroom window. I barely had time to process the scene when I heard a noise from the house behind me.

Mr Hampton was up early, standing on the porch in his usual starched shirt as he surveyed the yard. I quickly hid behind a tree, watching as he walked to collect each gnome, one by one, carefully placing them back into their original positions under bushes and along flower beds.

“They like things just so,” Mrs Hampton had said to me the day before. “They have a way of arranging themselves, don’t they, dear?”

In the days that followed I watched Mr Hampton...

---

Content cut off. Read original on https://old.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/1gkc6pu/im_seeing_things_i_cant_explain_since_my_stay_at/

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/False-Cow-9158 on 2024-11-06 01:25:10+00:00.

---

I had been homeless for 2 years when I found the “Shady Acre” Apartments complex. Before that I had been sleeping under roadways and behind dumpsters which were some of the lowest points in my life. Having found the mostly completed apartments being abandoned before they were officially completed was like hitting the jackpot for someone like me. Tucked away in a cleared lot nestled against the woods on the slower part of town, the Shady Acres acres were a complex for newer families and lower income individuals but somehow it found itself never being finally completed. The walls were not painted and the flooring were not installed but aside from the minor features, the place was practically livable. Of course the electric wasn't working alongside the water and plumbing but as the saying goes, “Beggars can't be choosers”. I peaked my head inside as I entered the first floor. Tools,materials and odds and ends still layed strewn about as if someone was going to come back to finish the job or at least clean up their mess but it appeared that no one ever did. I grabbed a sizable pipe laying on the ground just in case. Homeless people, if startled can and will turn violent very quickly. I did a brief inspection of the main floor, peaking my head inside of ways to confirm that I was alone in a substantially sized building but sure enough, I couldnt find anyone else. 

As I inspected the main floor I found a stairway. A metal door once stood in the way but now layed on the ground. It was clear that someone damaged it with some type of tool in order to keep it open.

I went to the stairway and looked inside. The natural light provide by the sun aided by the many open windows could only spill over so much. Inside was a set of stairs going but both upwards and down below. I didnt have a flashlight but what little natural sun entered the stairway was just enough to give me the courage to explore upwards. Giving off just enough light to give me courage to see the second floor. I went up the metal stairs quietly so as to not alarm anyone else to my presence here. The second floor was nearly identical to the first. I walked down the halls gripping the pipe, ready to defend myself from an unknown attacker. Again, much like the first floor, I didnt see anyone However I did find troubling signs of people having lived here at one point. I saw an old mattress littered with trash and old cigarettes. Clothes tossed in a pile in the corner of the room. Several dark stains covered the floor and one splattered on the wall next to the head of the mattress. My heart sank. It was more than likely something sinister had been committed here. I was going to turn to leave but alongside the disheartening evidence of someone being here, I found a flashlight and an old pistol. I took both and checked the gun to see 3 bullets remaining in the cylinders.  

I was going to leave but seeing now that I had a gun and a flashlight, this changes things. The flashlight worked perfectly, emitting a strong blue led light on the stained wall when I clicked it on. I still kept the pipe with me as a back up but the pistol was now gripped firmly in my right hand. The second floor had bits and pieces of trash here and there but nothing as concerning than what was in that one room. I entered the stairwell with my flashlight guiding me. Unlike the first two floors the third floor had an actual door standing at the entrance. Lucky for me, the handle turned slowly and granted me access. A quick inspection of the door revealed a marvelous find. This door could be locked from the inside. If this floor was clear, this would be a magnificent set up. I could lock the door and prevent any vagrants much like myself coming up here and killing me in my sleep. All I would have to do is verify that the floor was clear and I would be all set. 

The third floor had varied greatly from the first 2. No bits of drywall on the floor or discarded nails laying haphazardly. There still wasnt electricity but nothing my new flashlight couldnt handle. The floor was unfinished but oddly clean as if it was getting prepped for carpet or new flooring before this place shut down. I cleared each room slowly, making sure to check every closet and cupboard before finally letting my guard down. I went back to the stairway and locked the door to prevent anyone else from coming up. I picked a room facing the parking lot that way I could look out and see if anyone was coming. 

I spent the rest of the day in my new found home. The flashlight and gun were an amazing find but that unsettling sight of the blood stained floor and walls was something that still concerned me. Maybe it was something else, perhaps someone spilled something and it just looked bad? I thought to myself trying to not freak myself out so much. The thought also crept into my mind about how I yet to inspected the basement and what horrors lurked down there. For being homeless, I was fairly paranoid. I made myself a game plan for tomorrow that I would go out and find cheap furniture and food to fill my barebone apartment. It would take several trips but well worth the effort. 

Night time and boredom eventually found me. I sat in the corner of the room trying to get comfortable and let sleep carry me into tomorrow but it was difficult. Sure enough I managed to fall asleep but staying asleep was another story. I woke up in the middle of the night, I didnt have anything to check the time with but it was several hours before the sun would be rising. I got up feeling the urge to go to the bathroom. This complex didnt have running water so I would have to go outside to relieve myself. I grabbed the gun and flashlight and walked over to the stariway and unlocked the door. I went down the 2 flights of stairs and walked out back to go to the bathroom. The back of the complex was as neglected as the complex itself. Tall weeds filled the field that stretched out to the dark trees. Moonlight was scarce and a cool chill breezed over me as I went to the bathroom. I glanced at the complex as I did my business. Anxiety had yet to find me as I was still sleepy. I could hear cars off in the distance from the nearby highway but no animal life could be heard. It was probably too cold for them, I thought as I pulled my pants up and made my way inside. I entered the hollow shell of the first floor. 

Stealth was not my main concern seeing as that sleep was my only goal. I entered the stairway, ready to ascend back up to my room of safety when I stopped. For the briefest of moments, I could have sworn I heard what sounded like mumbling down below. My flashlight was on but I didnt dare shine it down into the basement. In fact, a moment curiosity washed over me as I turned my light off and listened in the stairway. I gripped the gun as I stepped over to the stairs that led downwards. My suspicions were confirmed as I felt my way down a step or two to hear more clearly the rambling of someone down here. I paused for a moment, unsure of what to do. Whoever was down here sounded as if they were speaking and no one else was responding. Perhaps a mentally ill person took shelter down here. 

I walked back up the stairs silently as the soft mumblings of whoever was down there slowly faded beneath the stairs. I was fairly fit and mentally strong so having an interaction with anyone would be more likely in my favor. I made it to the third floor and the sound was no longer existent. It was clear that the distance between us had enough cushion to drown out the sounds from either of us which was relieving. I made sure to lock the door to the stairway before heading back to my room. Although the realization I wasnt alone in this building was brief and honestly quite harmless, it made finding sleep all the more difficult. I dont know if I slept much that night but I woke up feeling very tired. 

I got up and glance out the window to see the complex parking lot empty and the sun beaming over the distant trees. I unlocked the stairway door and went down the stairs and outside. I spent the day in town getting things ready for my new place. The local thrift store had a cheap air mattress that I purchased but it didnt come with a pump. I loaded up with other essentials like huge gallon sized jugs of water and food that was easy to make or didnt require power. After making a trip or two back to the empty complex, my room was decent enough for me to not have to worry about it for a week or so. The only thing I wasn't able to work out was the bath room situation which would require me to go down the sets of stairs and out back facing the woods. 

I was going to go in the basement later that day but got caught up doing other things and by the time I was available the sun had set. This wouldnt affect the actual lighting of the basement obviously but I didnt want to face whatever was down there and come up to a pitch black night. Besides, whoever was down there didnt seem aware of me or my setup and that was enough comfort for me to leave that problem to another day. I made sure to use the bathroom around back before going back up to my room. I didnt want to have to make the hike in the middle of the night again. While I was using the restroom, I peered out into the woods several hundred yards away. I wasnt sure how long I would be able to keep up the abandoned apartment situation so I briefly considered checking out the woods as a back up if I were to be found out. 

Again that ...

---

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This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/greenclayoftheearth on 2024-11-05 22:14:13+00:00.

---

Part 1:

11-3 I have no idea what's happening but I feel like im going to lose my mind. I have been taking sleeping pills but it doesn't help. I still see him in my dreams. I see that little fuck waiting for me under the sink in the pantry.

Police have been checking on me and Julie pretty regularly. We're staying at her parents house right now up in Ipswitch MA. I like to tell myself will come all the way from NC but something tells me he's willing to do anything. Why? Or to achieve what I don't fucking know yet.

But I keep having these dreams every night. I'll try to explain it but it sounds fucking ridiculous I don't know. I usually wake up in a forest covered in dirt with a sharp pain in my chest. There's always this screeching off in the trees. Next to me is a big stone pot but evertime I try to look inside it I wake up. If anyone knows what it might mean please tell me.

Me and Julie have been going on walks she said it should help clear my head. I honestly don't know if it helps. She's the only thing that can really keep my head clear. Her parents house isn't really close to town it's off a path in the woods but it's quiet, peaceful, open. There's alot of wildlife mostly deer and birds. I've been so on edge lately Julie has been trying anything to calm me down. She'll stay up with me when I can't fall asleep even though I tell her not to. This land is beautiful if I wasn't losing my shit this would be the perfect place to propose.

11-5 Fuck. God damn it I knew I wasn't being paranoid. He's here.

We were watching a movie The Fly one of my favorites. Then the whole house started smelling fucking horrible. The unmistakable sharp sour smell of something dead. I looked around the house frantic holding an axe in my hands ready for that little fuck. Julie was trying to calm me down get me to stop but I wouldn't I couldn't not until I found him. But I didn't find him just the source of the smell. In the kitchen packages of frozen food scattered all over the tile. Julie already had her hand on the freezer door I held the axe high above my head ready to end this.

The door flew open at her slightest pull and the whole house was filled with the piercing cries of a baby dear. Mangled and bloody it's body twisted and broken like some broken toy having been hastily crammed into the freezer. Julie weeped covering her eyes. With every desperate cry from the deer blood gushed out of its mouth and joints painting the tile in a deep crimson. I took a deep breathe reached over and grabbed a knife from the drawer. I quickly pushed it into the poor things chest ending it misery.

I argued with the police for what felt like hours I hated the idea of staying here. He knows that we're here I insisted. But the brain dead fucking donut munchers claimed that I lashed out on the deer after it broke in due to my considerable mental strain. Julie sat upstairs crying, I felt horrible, she shouldn't have had to see that. After the police left and I cleaned the kitchen I went to our room defeated and fell asleep faster than I had in a week. I had another dream.

This one was more vivid I felt in control. I tried to wake up telling myself I was dreaming but the more I thought it the less I believed it. That screamed pierced through the air. But this time it called my name, this time I could tell it was Julie. I shot up to run but woke up.

I got out of bed checked all the locks on doors and windows. The vents too especially the fucking vents. I kept the door to our bedroom locked and the axe by the bed. I layed down next to Julie and wept.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/K1R4_SH1KE1 on 2024-11-04 17:48:04+00:00.

---

“Damn it!” I exclaimed, fingers in pain as my heel scraped them against the inside of my shoe.  “Stupid piece of sh-”  “Language.” a voice called from the kitchen.  I looked up to my mother’s face of judgment.

“Sorry, mom.” I began, hitting my foot against the floor.  “My dumb shoe won’t go on and I’m late.”

“Did you get up on time?” she asked, moving a towel along a wet plate.  “I tried.” I responded, clutching the sides of my shoe to pull it onto my foot.  She sighed as the plate landed on the counter with a clatter.  “Wake up at a reasonable time and you’ll have no need to cuss in my house.”

Finally, the shoe went on my foot.  I sloppily tied the laces and sprung back up to stand.  “Okay,” I started, flinging my backpack onto my back.  “I’m heading out, mom.”  Walking toward her, she flipped the towel onto her shoulder.  “Be careful.” she warned, giving me a hug.  “It’s very misty today.”

“Figured.” I responded, kissing her on the cheek.  “I love you.”  Turning around, I headed for the door.  “Wait!” my mother exclaimed, taking a few steps out of the kitchen.  “Take the bridge to school today.”

“Why?” I questioned, opening the door.  “I’m already late.”  “The mist is too thick on the road.” she stated.  “I don’t care how late that makes you.  Children get lost in it often.”  “Fine.” I responded, stepping out.  “Bye!”  If my mother said anything after that, I didn’t hear.

After jumping down the stairs leading up to my front door, I ran down my sidewalk.  “Wow.” I thought, looking ahead.  “The mist really is thick.  I can see it from here.”

Continuing to make my way to school, I eventually reached the bridge about a block from where I started.  A few feet past it was the start of the road, covered in a solid layer of mist.

Staring into the foggy white, I thought, “I’ve walked through mist to school before.  As long as I keep walking forward, I’ll be just fine.”  After a quick shrug, I made my way into the mist.

The soft texture felt like cotton candy along the skin of my arms and legs.  The whole area was silent aside from the taping my shoes made along the pavement.  It was cold, unusual for so early in August.  My choice to wear shorts and a tank top was becoming a strong regret.

I breathed out a loud gasp.  “Was I unconsciously holding my breath?” I thought, putting my hand to my chest.  “My breathing does seem a bit loud.”

This was like a horror movie.  I turned my head, expecting a mist monster to come and kill me.  Nothing but a long stretch of white was behind.

A chill ran up my spine and caused my hair to stand up.  I swung my head back in front of me.  There was a woman standing in the middle of the road.   Swaying from side to side, she walked with her head down.  Her curly dark hair framed her face and a baggy shirt draped over her body.  It appeared to have a dark stain under the neckline.

“Hey!” I called out, my voice producing no echo.  “Are you okay?”  I wasn’t sure if she even heard me.

Her head shot up and she stared at me.  A closer look at her face gave me an audible gasp.  Her left eye was whited out as if she was blind.  The right one was completely gone, replaced by a gaping hole.  Blood pooled out of it and coated her shirt even more.

“Ma’am?” I asked, taking a step closer.  She opened her mouth and screamed.  Her voice felt like needles stabbing into my ears.  I covered them up, fearing they would pop.  It was futile.  The sound wasn’t muffled in the slightest. 

I didn’t know what else to do so I ran.  The mist seemed to sting my eyes and scrape against my skin.  Spending all my energy, my legs became weak.  My arms fell to my sides as I slowed down.  I expected to hear the woman’s gut wrenching scream, but it was back to the lack of sound.

Quickly, I began to walk, arms hugged around myself.  The absolute silence was deafening.  I was too scared to talk, thinking that something might hear me if I made any other sound besides walking.  A part of me wished that I could hear screaming again.

I looked around to scan the area, praying that something would come into view.  The mist seemed to stretch out for miles.  Suddenly, I saw an outline of a building in the distance.  Smiling, I ran toward it, knowing my school was only a couple dozen feet away.

Stopping dead in my tracks, I looked up at the misty building.  It was mostly crumbled as if halfway through a demolition process.  However, that’s not why my feet stopped moving.

“There’s no buildings near the road.” I thought, examining the structure.  “The only one is my school and it’s in perfectly good shape.”  Pipes stuck out of walls, drywall patches covered the floor, the rubble looked dusty and old.  “I shouldn’t be here.”

Speeding up my previous walking pace, I continued down the path.  More destroyed and falling buildings appeared.  It was as if it was an old ghost town, lost to time.  

A silhouette of someone came into view.  I flinched back, worried that this person was like the screaming woman.  Coming closer, I saw she was a beautiful lady.  She walked with grace and a straight posture.  I walked past her with no issue.  Although, I could’ve sworn she was bleeding from her neck.

As soon as we parted, more people appeared.  Some stood upright, others severely hunched over.  One man had a very curved spine.

My legs refused to move when I got closer.  His spine wasn’t curved, he was cut in half with the top half placed off-center.  He moved around normally, unaware that one hard turn would make his top fall off.

I turned around, my head on a swivel.  Every person there had some form of a severe injury.  Missing limbs, bullet wounds, anything that would adorn a corpse.  People conversed with broken jaws and children played with innards spilling out.  I backed up into a building, not believing what was in front of my eyes.  The cold cement touched my skin as I had nowhere else to go.

All of a sudden a pair of legs fell in front of me.  I screamed and fell to the ground.  When I looked up, I saw a woman hanging by her neck.  The rope held tightly under her blue face, eyes devoid of any color.  Her noose snapped and she toppled to the ground.  As if nothing happened, she stood up and looked at me.

Gazing past her, they were all looking at me.  She, along with a few others, held blank stares.  Most looked at me in fear and confusion.  It was me who was a stranger here.

I quickly scrambled to my feet and began to sprint.  It didn’t matter how, I had to get out of here.  With every step, more and more people appeared, all staring at me.  The mist clung to my skin like a glue, seemingly trying to pull me back.  I swung my arms in front of me in a desperate attempt to swat it all away.

I tripped on the ground, my chin landing scraping against it.  There was an ice cold feeling by my ankle.  Looking down, a man laid on the ground, his eyes piercing into mine.  He dragged his bottom half by one string of guts.  I gazed up and saw the other people behind him walking slowly closer to us.

I’m not quite sure why I did it, but I screamed again.  I screamed as I got up and as I ran.  Closing my eyes, I prayed my legs would know where to guide me.  The mist scratched at my skin, feeling like hands with sharp claws bringing me back to that town of death.

In one more desperate act, I shouted what seemed to be a war cry.  The hands of the mist were not going to steal me.

Then I fell once again.  With my eyes still shut, I clawed my way forward.  Dirt seeped under my fingernails.  My eyes then shot open.  There was no dirt in the mist.

The gray building of my school laid a few feet away from me.  I swung my head behind me and the mist was still there.

I had made it out.

I got to my feet and scrambled away from the thick wall.  My heart rate began to slow and my breathing became steady.  A deep breath helped me to relax as much as I could.

“Are you okay, little missy?” a voice called.  I flinched and faced who was talking.  The groundskeeper of the school tilted his head a bit.  “Y-yeah…” I stammered.  “I’m all good.”

He chuckled and walked closer.  “It’s not a good idea to go into the mist when it’s that thick.” he began, looking into the white void.  “I don’t know why this stupid town decided not to tell kids what happens when it’s like that.  Now some are trapped there.”  He turned back and gave me a somber smile.

“Consider yourself lucky,” he said, tipping his baseball cap.  “Just be sure to only take the bridge on your way here next time.”

I nodded profusely, visibly still shaken up.  “T-thank you sir.” I managed to get out.  “No problem.” he responded, making his way past me.

I stared at my feet, processing what I just learned.  “What is that place?” I thought, lost in my own mind.  “Why would my mom not tell me the truth?”  Too many questions, so little answers.

“One more thing,” the man called out, breaking me out of my trance.  “My daughter might’ve screamed at you.  I’m sorry about that.”

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/GN0515_ on 2024-11-05 22:29:51+00:00.

---

I thought it was funny, personally. As I drove home, I passed the town’s only stoplight. I was listening to the radio for local election results. Our mayor, who hadn’t lost an election in over twenty years, was running unopposed. I don’t know what possessed me, but I decided to write myself in.

The radio crackled as I continued down the strip, passing the grocery store and at least three Dollar Generals. Then, Ollie Brandsford’s voice boomed over the static, “Alright, it’s another election day in Shara County. We’re expecting some tight races for Alderman today, and as usual, Mayor Harlan Drover is running unopposed.”

“Should be a quick one there,” I chuckled.

“Oh wow, we’ve got early results and projected the winner for mayor of Shara County.”

“Lemme guess, Harlan Drover,” I said dryly as I turned left, passing the final Dollar General. “Let’s just get it over with.” 

“And the winner who won by two votes is Benny Sinclair!” 

I hit the brakes and pulled over to the side of the road. Did he just say Benny Sinclair? That was my name. Was I now Mayor-Elect? “What a shocker, folks!” Ollie said over the radio. “I’ve never seen something like this happen before!”

I sat in my car, shocked, as I turned down the radio’s volume and sat there silently until my phone rang. It was a local number I didn’t recognize. “Hello?” I stuttered, still puzzled.

“Benny Sinclair, this is Mayor Harlan Drover,” the voice said. “Congratulations on your win.”

“Uh, yeah, about that…”

“Yeah, I’m a little shocked by the results myself.”

“I didn’t even campaign, sir.”

“Well, regardless, how about you come down to the Town Hall, so we can begin the transition?”

“You still have a little bit left in your term, sir.”

“I would rather get the ball rolling so you’re fully prepared for the responsibilities of Shara County,” he replied with a strange and obtuse tone. It felt almost sinister to me. “So can I expect you here in the next 30 minutes?”

“Let me check my schedule,” I answered, trying to figure out an excuse to get out of going to Town Hall, much less actually be the Mayor. “Yeah, it looks–”

“So I can see you in 28 minutes?” he interrupted. “We have much to discuss and there is no better time than now to do it.”

“Okay, I can–,” I replied, trying to think of another way to get out of going there.

“That’s great, I shall see you in 27 minutes,” he continued before he hung up the phone. It meant I was now going to Town Hall.

— 

The parking lot held one car as I gazed from my windshield at the aged, almost gothic structure that was strangely our Town Hall. I stepped out of my car and looked at the double doors, wondering if this would become a regular sight. Was I really going to be the mayor?

As I walked down the dimly lit hallway, its old tile a familiar sight in government buildings, I called out, “Hello?” Each step echoed through the space.

A door at the end of the hall swung open loudly, and a barely visible silhouette stood in the doorway, too dark to make out. “I see you made it,” the voice reverberated across the hall. It was Mayor Drover.

“Hey Mayor Drover, so I came like you asked, but I still think it's a little early to start the transition.” 

“It’s never too early.”

“Alright, I guess,” I replied as I continued to walk towards the Mayor. I realized I’d never really seen him before. He was a shorter man with very deep eyes that showed signs of exhaustion. His posture was slouched as he extended his hand.

“Congratulations, Mayor-Elect,” he replied, shaking my hand with a limp grip. As he guided me through the door to a descending staircase, he added, “So let’s go over a couple of things.”

“Listen, I wrote myself in as a joke,” I said, looking down to see the darkness deepening as we descended further. “I don’t think I’m Mayor material.”

“Nonsense, democracy has spoken!”

“I won by two votes.”

“Well, there were only two people who voted for Mayor.”

“Oh, that’s kind of weird.”

“Well, the voter has spoken,” he responded, beginning to walk down the stairs. I paused, trying to process everything that had happened. “So are you coming or not?”

I relented, for whatever reason, and began to follow him down. As I descended further, I had to ask, “So am I really going to be the Mayor?” He turned his head and gave me a smile that sent chills down my spine.

“Being the Mayor of Shara County is quite the responsibility.” “Yeah, and like I said, it was pretty much a joke.” “The office of Mayor in Shara County is no joke, Mayor-Elect.”

“That’s what I’m saying, Mayor Drover,” I explained as the darkness deepened the further we went. But Mayor Drover remained silent, making me feel even more uneasy. “So can we do like one of those Florida recount things?”

“Sure, we can do that!” he exclaimed as we finally reached the bottom. A narrow hallway with a stone floor contrasted the tile from before. The hall led to a pair of oversized wooden doors.

“So we’re going to do the recount?”

 “Absolutely! We can do it right now!” 

“How are you going to do that here?”

 “You voted for yourself, right?” he said, starting to walk toward the oversized doors. “So that’s one of the two votes.” 

“As a joke, which I keep on saying!”

 “I voted for you, too,” he replied as he stopped in front of the doors. “Probably shouldn’t have bragged about it to your friends; word gets around fast in a small town.” 

“Wait, why would you vote for me?” “Because I’m tired, Mr. Mayor-Elect,” he said as he began to push the doors open.

 “I’ve been the keeper of the town’s secret for over twenty years.” 

“What are you talking about?” I said as I heard the wind begin to blow violently from the doors. “The secret?” 

“Our town is the home of an old god,” he answered. “The old god demands the blood of the leader when a new leader is chosen.” 

“So why would you want a new leader?” I asked, as I watched a large hand appear from the door, slowly moving to Mayor Dover. As he smiled at me one last time, while the giant fingers wrapped around him.

“Because politics is exhausting.”

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Weird-Suggestion-152 on 2024-11-05 17:31:15+00:00.

---

Part 1

it’s been a few nights since I last posted, and... well, a lot has happened. I’ve been following the rules as best I can, but for every answer I find, it feels like two more questions take its place. Working these night shifts has my mind in knots, with every night bleeding into the next until I can barely remember what day it is. I’ve seen things, things that don’t add up, things I can’t explain away. And yet, here I am, showing back up night after night. I want to quit, but I’ve made more money in the past few nights than I have working an entire two weeks at other jobs.

Night two was mostly uneventful.

Ronald made his usual appearance; same dull uniform, same shuffle to the front desk and repeating the right phrase, “I’m here to clean the mess”. I tried to stay out of his way, and everything seemed calm, until I noticed that key 309 was missing again. Sticking to the rules, I made my way to the kitchen. It was still stocked with fresh ingredients, which I still can’t wrap my head around. Who’s restocking this stuff? Shaking it off, I made a simple ham and cheese, then took the elevator up to the third floor. The ritual continued as usual: I knocked, kept my gaze down, and waited. The door creaked open, and this time, the person lingered in the doorway longer than before, like they were waiting for me to make eye contact. I held my ground until I heard the door shut slowly. On my way back, I skipped the elevator altogether. No way was I risking a detour to the basement again. I took the stairs instead, counting each step down, hoping nothing else would happen.

After night two ended without any major surprises, I felt a spark of confidence. Just follow the rules, take the stairs down, don’t overthink it, maybe this gig was simpler than I thought. By the time night three rolled around, I showed up feeling a lot more assured, already $500 richer, and convinced I had cracked the code. I had this in the bag, or so I thought.

But as soon as I settled in for my shift, it became clear that night three had other plans for me.

Not long after I started my shift, Ronald made his entrance. I felt a bit relieved to see him. There was something reassuring about having someone else around, even if he wasn’t exactly chatty company. But that night, Ronald seemed... different. His uniform looked freshly pressed, like he’d actually taken care to look sharp, and his usual sluggish walk had turned into a brisk stride. When he reached the desk, he looked at me with a strange grin and said, “Time to get this place spick and span!” I froze. Ronald had always said the same phrase, without fail. My mind scrambled, trying to remember what the rules said about this. He kept staring, his grin unwavering, eyes locked on me like he was waiting for something. Then it hit me: “No cleaning needed tonight, Ronald.” As soon as I said it, his smile fell, his expression darkening. Through gritted teeth, he repeated his phrase, “It’s time... to get this place... spick... and span”. With adrenaline beginning to pump through my body, I repeated with a shaky voice, “No cleaning needed tonight, Ronald.” He finally backed away, slowly, staring at me with hatred until he reached the door. I waited until he was gone and locked it tight behind him.

After Ronald left, I stood there, my pulse hammering as I tried to process what had just happened. What the hell was that? Ronald’s strange behavior, his creepy demeanor, wide smile, fresh clothes, what was wrong with him? What's wrong with this whole place, for that matter? I thought I had things figured out, but now I wasn’t so sure. I began to question if I’d really be able to handle whatever else this hotel had in store. That confidence I’d felt at the beginning of the night was fading fast.

That night, I decided it was time to get a better sense of this place. The rules and strange encounters had thrown me off balance, and I thought that maybe exploring a bit would help me make sense of it all. Armed with my master key, I left the desk behind and wandered down the corridors. Being the only person in a giant hotel felt unnatural, the silence broken only by the sounds made by my feet. I passed rows of tarnished brass fixtures and faded wallpaper, remnants of a once-grand elegance that had long since slipped away.

On the second floor, I found the ballroom, a huge echoing space that seemed frozen in time. Dust coated every surface, and a once-sparkling chandelier hung above, its crystals now clouded and covered in cobwebs. I ran my hand along the edge of a table covered in a fine layer of dust, my fingers leaving tracks as if no one had touched it in decades. For a moment, I tried to imagine what the place must have looked like in its heyday. Just as I turned to leave, I heard a sound on the other side of the room, by the bar. I turned around, half-expecting someone, or something, to be waiting behind me, but there was nothing. I slowly backed out of the room with an intense feeling of being watched.

As I continued my tour, I noticed that most rooms unlocked easily with the master key. But a few doors, oddly, wouldn’t budge. I tried the key, jiggling it and pushing, but it was as if these doors were meant to stay closed, resisting every attempt to pry them open.

As I moved up to the seventh floor, I passed by a particular room that made me stop in my tracks. I could hear a soft voice from within the room. I froze, heart pounding as I leaned in to listen. The voice was faint but unmistakable; someone was inside. As I was straining to hear it, the voice abruptly stopped. My breath caught, and I took a step back, every instinct screaming at me to leave. As I backed away, I heard heavy footsteps approach the door and stop. Looking at the door, I couldn’t help but feel like whoever it was, was looking at me through the peephole. I thought I saw the doorknob twitch, just the faintest movement, as though someone inside was reaching for it. “Nope” I told myself, and I hurried down the hall, leaving the floor entirely. I tried to convince myself it was my imagination. But either way, I had no desire to stick around and find out. 

After exploring the eighth floor, I made my way up to the ninth, which looked just like the others, dimly lit and lined with old doors. I had seen enough for one night. The thought of a long journey down the stairs back to the lobby loomed ahead, but it felt like a welcome return to familiarity. As I turned to head toward the stairwell, I caught a glimpse of my reflection in a mirror mounted on the wall.

Looking at myself in the mirror, I couldn’t help but notice how tired and beat-down I looked. As I was examining myself, almost looking at myself with pity, I saw something else in the mirror. Behind me, down the hall, I saw someone else. A figure standing far behind me at the other end of the hall, peaking at me from around the corner. My stomach dropped, a cold knot tightening in my gut as fear washed over me. I whipped around, heart racing, but the hallway was empty. I turned back to the mirror, my breath hitching in my throat, and there it was again, the figure still there, peeking at me from around the corner. It was too far down the hallway to make out any of its features, but it was unmistakable. Suddenly, I remembered the rule, “don’t look into any mirrors after midnight”. Checking my phone, there it was, 1:23, a.m. Shit, shit, shit, I thought. I burst through the doors of the stairwell and made my way down the nine flights of stairs as quickly as I could.

Finally, back at my desk, I sank into the chair, my heart still racing and my breath heavy from the frantic descent down the stairs. I decided to stay put for the rest of the night, unwilling to venture out again. The hours crept by slowly, but the rest of the night was thankfully uneventful. The sun was beginning to rise, and with my shift over, I clocked out, a fresh $500 check in hand. Relief flooded over me as I thought about the safety of the morning outside and another night successfully in the books. As I was turning to leave though, I noticed something.

An error. A mistake. Key 309 had been missing, and I never noticed. I never brought the guest of room 309 a ham sandwich. Yet, with morning breaking and my shift officially over, I shrugged it off, telling myself it was too late to go back now.

When I finally got home, exhaustion weighed heavily on me. I collapsed onto my bed, desperate to catch some sleep after the long night at the hotel. But sleep never comes easily after working the night shift. The unnatural hours play tricks on my body. Even with blackout curtains pulled tight against the early morning light, I tossed and turned, restless and unable to fully escape the haunting images of the night. The figure in the mirror, Ronald's strange appearance, and the voice in the room. I couldn’t shake the feeling that something is seriously wrong, and that the hotel is somehow seeping into my mind. On the bright side, the money I’m making allowed me to catch up on bills and finally start paying down my loans, a small victory amid the growing unease. With little sleep to show for my efforts, I begrudgingly pulled myself up and got ready for another shift, bracing myself for whatever the night would throw my way.

When I arrived at the hotel for my next shift, a ...

---

Content cut off. Read original on https://old.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/1gkc7ou/the_arcadian_hotel_night_attendant_training_tapes/

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Seiqe on 2024-11-05 03:38:59+00:00.

---

Hi, I’m Seiqe, and I’m the poster who got banned off X (twitter) for posting my occult findings. No way the pics I posted were a violation of TOS. I don’t think the content was half as horrible as the Ukraine videos I’ve seen scrolling, but somebody reported my account.

Today, I’m here to clear my name. If this thread gets popular enough, I might get my account back.

All you need is context about me and what I do. It’s plain nothing I showed, or demonstrated, was evil (as they said in the ban letter). But they’re going to pretend like they’re the arbiters of what’s good and true? A ridiculous, wrong, and unseemly thing for a company to do.

So, let’s get this out of the way, I believe in magic. If you don’t, fine, even more of a reason I should get my account back. I would wager most reading this are skeptics and non-believers, but there are a few folks who might be in tune with the spiritual — who’ve seen the power of mysticism. Because magic is faith, but magic is also fear.

You’ve all tried magic at least once in your life.

How many scary games did you play when you were a kid? You know the ones like Bloody Mary, or Cat Scratches — everyone experimented with them. And they’re thematic of what I’m talking about when I say magic is faith and magic is fear.

Stay with me:

Bloody Mary is a mirror game where you perform a ritual to summon the ghost of Bloody Mary in a mirror. I first played it when I was eight with my neighbor Sam and his older sister Aggy. I didn’t see anything, but when Aggy tried it, the mirror cracked, and a glass shard cut her cheek. She said she hadn’t seen Mary, but she had seen something. Out of all of us, Aggy had been the most afraid to play the game. I didn’t know it at the time, but it was her fear that had given power to the ritual.

They’re all invocations: The Midnight Game, Light as a Feather Stiff as a Board, Devil’s Face, Ouija Boards etc… all of them are rituals; played by children, invoking faith, fueled by fear. You cannot have one without the other.

So that’s the baseline, the undercurrent beneath all of this. Like folks believe in gods and money, I believe in magic, ritual, and supernatural powers.

I think I always have. Although, it wasn’t until I was in high school and I ran through The Ars Goetia, that I was inspired to start my own book of spells. I categorized all spells and rituals that I wrote down in my little book by religion, difficulty, and potency. Not that they were potent at first. Not until I proved to myself that there were doors to truth that could be reached through them. I wasn’t looking for an almighty, or a way of living; rather, for powers that lie outside of our metaphysical realm.

Which I didn’t really encounter until college.

Remember I mentioned I grew up with Sam? I also went to college with Sam. We shared a dorm.

We spent our late nights watching horror movies. He was a goth kid in high school, and I was a weirdo. In college he became a stoner art major, and I stayed the same weirdo. But by then we’d been friends long enough that me lighting candles and mumbling over archaic books didn’t weird him out.

But it did weird out his girlfriend, Tina.

She wore overalls that were always covered in some kind of oil paint. She’d stay over some nights and drink a little, and I think I annoyed her with my chanting.

“Could you put out the candles? It’s three in the fuckin’ morning,” she grumbled at me, as she unfolded the pillow from her head.

“I’m almost done,” I muttered, “and don’t interrupt me.”

“Stop with the bullshit. That’s fake, go to sleep.”

“You wanna bet?” I asked, looking up from my summoning table (which at the time was a fold out meal tray.) I practiced my sigil carving on a chalkboard, but only burned candles inside after I set off the fire alarm our first week.

“Yeah, I do want to bet; if it’ll make you go the fuck to bed.”

“Next time you stay over — I’ll prove it.”

“Fine, now fuck off with the chanting.”

Tina didn’t stay over until again until a week after mid-terms.

Which gave me time to prepare. See, dear reader, skeptics are notoriously hard to convince. Even then I knew that it took a certain state of mind to experience the occult, like the kind I tried to achieve through rigorous arcane practices.

But stuff like summoning was too in depth for novices — they don’t know their cardinal points from their elbows. They didn’t have the faith to find real power. But then, I theorized that all it might take were the right conditions to inculcate fear to fuel faith. And I was reminded of those old games that I mentioned we used to play as kids. Something like a game, but heavier, with more substance might do. One game in my spell book stood out to me: Three Kings, which was famous for its strict rules, and was designed to set about certain conditions. Once met, they might affect anybody.

“What’s with the mirrors?” asked Sam, the night Tina was to stay over. 

“Remember when we played bloody Mary as kids?” I asked.

“Yeah, Aggy still has the scars.”

“This is like that, but a lot more powerful. I made a bet with Tina that I would convince her that the supernatural existed, by the way” I said.

“And you’re just now telling me? That’s kinda fucked,” Sam said, not looking super happy about it.

“Ugh, don’t be jealous. I’m not making a move on her; I’m showing her the occult.”

“Man, sometimes you take it too far,” he said. “This is why I can’t bring you to parties, you talk about all this weird fucking bullshit.”

“It’s not bullshit. Don’t you remember how Aggy saw something?”

“When we were eight!?” he exclaimed. “Whatever, if Tina agreed, I guess. But after this, if she still doesn’t believe you, you’re done,” Sam said, pointing a finger at my chest.

The rules of the Three Kings game were simple. Wake up at 3:30am exactly. Within 3 minutes go into a dark room that’s prepared with all the materials: a lit candle, a fan, two mirrors, and three chairs. Two chairs should be set facing one chair, with tall mirrors placed in both of their seats. Put the fan behind the empty chair where you’ll be sitting. The idea is to sit down with the lit candle in front of you to block the air. Gaze above the candle flame into the darkness. Do NOT look directly into the mirrors.

And soon two others will join you, seated in the mirrors on either side. The game’s premise is all about asking them questions. They will answer and ask in turn. Together you make the Three Kings.

By the time Tina arrived it was close to 11pm, and I already had the mirrors set up. For the chairs — I used lawn chairs, which was what we had. I’d also shut our curtains.

"So, what’s the candle actually for?" Tina asked, after I explained the game to her.

"The candle is a kind of tether, if something were to happen — like you falling off the chair, the fan would put out the candle and end the ritual," I explained. “Oh, and don’t look directly at either mirror.”

She laughed. I rolled my eyes. 

“You gotta wake up when I wake you up, promise?” I asked Tina. 

“I regret this,” she sighed, rolling her eyes. "But sure." 

“You have to take this seriously if you want to be convinced,” I said. And she shrugged. 

Sam and Tina kind of ignored me after that and smoked a little, then went to bed. I was too excited to sleep. I was supposed to wake up with the alarm clock, according to the rules, but I was still awake when the clock struck 3:30.

I woke the two of them up, their eyes bleary, and they followed my instructions with much yawning and cursing. Tina took her seat in front of the mirrors. I handed her the lit candle and turned on the fan. Sam and I went out into the hall.

“How long is this supposed to take?” Sam asked, his eyes drooping.

“I don’t know, but we’ll give her like fifteen minutes," I said. Sam was already dozing off against the wall.

Our dorm room had a peephole that saw clear through both ways. Most students put tape over them, and so did we. But I removed the tape that night so I could watch. I remember looking through the peephole, and I saw Tina was awake and not sleeping in the chair. She was sat bolt upright, staring straight ahead. Surprisingly, it seemed she was taking this seriously, like I’d asked. 

Tina did not move for 10 minutes.

I began growing worried around the time I saw her gasp, like she was coming up for air. She started panting, hyperventilating. Wide-eyed, I almost woke Sam. But I decided to watch a bit longer, because something was wrong.

A low, muffled groan rattled the room.

And then rising behind it were deep voices murmuring words I couldn't make out. Sweat beaded on my brow and I started bouncing on my toes. Was this really happening? Would I finally see the supernatural after believing in it for so long? 

The voices grew louder and more guttural but stayed distant. I heard Tina sobbing. But Tina was sitting there, not moving, completely still.

This bothered me. And despite how much I wanted to see what would happen next — what powers would reveal themselves; I woke up Sam.

“Tina’s in trouble.”

“What?” he asked, snapping alert.

Sam went to open the door. It was locked. He tried our key, but it didn’t turn. He pounded on the door, calling Tina. He slammed his shoulder into it, but it didn’t budge. I shushed him; if he was going to be loud, he might wake up the whole dorm.

“Who the fuck cares!? I’m getting others,” he said, pulling away from the peephole. And he sprinted down the hallway, shouting for help....

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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/CreepyStoriesJR on 2024-11-04 19:32:38+00:00.

---

I never thought I’d be the one to cover the night shift, but I guess that’s how life throws things at you sometimes. I’ve always been the day shift clerk at this quiet supermarket, a regular, dependable guy doing regular, dependable work. My routine was simple: clock in at 9 AM, deal with a steady stream of customers, and head home by 6 PM. Easy. Predictable.

But last night, that all changed.

It was around 8 PM when I got the call from my manager, Linda. Now, Linda's been nothing but kind to me since I started here. She’s a sweet woman, always understanding when someone needed time off or when the schedule had to shift around a bit. So, when she called and I heard the urgency in her voice, I didn’t hesitate to listen.

“Tom?” Her voice crackled through the phone, tense and fast. “I need you to do me a big favor tonight.”

I could tell something was off right away. I leaned against the kitchen counter at home, glancing at my leftover dinner. “Sure, Linda. What’s going on?”

“It’s…well, it's about Jackson.” Her pause felt heavy, like she was picking her words carefully. “The night shift guy. He’s not answering his phone, and nobody saw him leave this morning.”

I frowned. Jackson? He’d been working the night shift for a few months now, quiet guy, kept to himself, but never struck me as unreliable. “Maybe he’s just sleeping in, forgot to charge his phone?”

“I wish it were that simple,” Linda sighed. “I checked the cameras, Tom. He didn’t leave the store.”

“What do you mean he didn’t leave?”

“I mean,” she continued, her voice dropping to almost a whisper, “he was here at 6 AM when the morning shift arrived, but then…nothing. He’s was gone. It’s like he vanished.”

My heart skipped a beat. This was getting weird. “So…you need me to cover for him tonight?”

“Just this once,” she assured me. “I know it’s short notice, but you’re the only one who’s free. Please, Tom. I’ll owe you big time.”

Something in her voice made me uneasy, but I agreed. Linda had been good to me, and I couldn’t leave her in the lurch. After all, what was the worst that could happen on a quiet night shift?

“I’ll do it,” I said finally. “But only this once.”

Linda let out a sigh of relief. “Thank you, Tom. I owe you.”

By 10:30 PM, I was on my way to the supermarket, mentally preparing myself for what I assumed would be a long, boring night. The store sat on the outskirts of town, nestled in a quiet suburban neighborhood. It was one of those places that never saw much action, especially at night. I figured I’d probably be alone for most of my shift.

As I approached the back entrance, I noticed something strange. The employee door, which was usually locked at this time of night, was blown open. A gust of wind pushed it back and forth on its hinges, creating an eerie creaking noise. And then I saw him, Jackson.

He was standing just inside the doorway, shivering like a leaf in the wind. His eyes were wide, bloodshot, and filled with something I couldn’t quite place, terror, maybe? He looked like he hadn’t slept in days, his face pale and gaunt.

“Jackson?” I called out, more confused than concerned at that moment. “What the hell are you doing out here? The manager’s been looking for you.”

Jackson didn’t respond right away. He stumbled toward me, his steps unsteady. When he got close enough, I could see the sweat beading on his forehead despite the cool night air.

“Tom,” he rasped, barely able to form the words. “Don’t…don’t cover the night shift.”

I blinked, taken aback by the urgency in his voice. “What? What are you talking about?”

“You don’t understand,” he muttered, running a hand through his disheveled hair. “This place…it’s not what it seems. You don’t want to be here at night. Trust me.”

I couldn’t help but feel a little irritated. Jackson had always been a bit odd, but this was too much. “Come on, man, you’re freaking out. Maybe you just need a few days off.”

He grabbed my arm, his grip surprisingly strong for someone who looked so weak. “No. I’m serious. Don’t stay."

I looked at him, puzzled.

Then he continued "But If you do stay…check the last drawer of the counter. There’s something there that will help you. And for God’s sake, leave at 6 AM. Not a minute earlier, not a minute later.”

“Jackson, listen to me”

“I’m not going back in there,” he interrupted, shaking his head violently. “Not ever.”

Then, before I could say another word, Jackson bolted, sprinting into the darkness as if his life depended on it.

I stood there for a few moments, watching Jackson disappear into the night. His behavior was bizarre, but I chalked it up to exhaustion. Working nights had probably gotten to him, people don’t always think straight when they’re sleep-deprived.

Still, something about his warning gnawed at the back of my mind.

When I finally entered the store, I found the day shift clerk, Sarah, getting ready to leave. She greeted me with a tired smile, but I could see the relief on her face, she was more than ready to clock out.

“Hey, Tom,” she yawned. “Thanks for covering tonight.”

“No problem,” I replied, glancing around. “By the way, did you see Jackson earlier? He was acting kind of strange.”

Sarah raised an eyebrow. “Jackson? No, I didn’t see him"

I frowned. “What do you mean? He was just outside a minute ago, freaking out about something.”

She shook her head, clearly confused. “I didn’t see anyone. And I’ve been here the whole time.”

A chill ran down my spine, but I forced myself to shrug it off. “Weird. Maybe he was hiding out somewhere.”

“Maybe,” Sarah said, unconvinced. “Well, good luck tonight. It’s usually dead quiet, but…” She hesitated, biting her lip as if she wanted to say more.

“But what?”

“Nothing,” she said quickly, grabbing her coat. “Just…don’t let it get to you. See you tomorrow.”

And with that, she left, leaving me alone in the quiet, fluorescent-lit store.

The first few minutes were uneventful. A couple of customers wandered in, buying late-night snacks or picking up a few items they had forgotten. I scanned their goods, made small talk, and settled into what I thought would be an easy shift.

Around 11:30 PM, the store fell completely silent. There were no more customers, no more cars passing by outside. Just me and the hum of the refrigerators.

I began to relax, thinking maybe this night shift thing wouldn’t be so bad after all.

But then, as I sat behind the counter, I noticed something odd. At the far end of the store, in the dimly lit aisles, there was a figure, a customer, maybe? But they weren’t moving. Just standing there between two aisles, like they were waiting for something.

“Hello?” I called out, peering into the darkened aisles. No response.

The figure stood perfectly still at the far end of the store, where the lighting was poor, casting long, eerie shadows between the shelves. I squinted, trying to make out any details, but it was hard to tell if it was a person or just my mind playing tricks on me. The store was silent, except for the faint hum of the refrigerators and the low buzzing of the fluorescent lights above.

“Hello?” I called out again, louder this time.

No response. The figure didn’t move. It was unsettling, but I convinced myself it was probably just a customer lingering in the shadows, perhaps deciding on a late-night snack. I turned my attention to the security monitor, thinking I could get a better look at whoever it was.

Oddly enough, the camera that had a direct view of that aisle showed nothing. Just empty aisles, shelves lined with products, but no person in sight. I frowned, glancing back up toward the aisle itself, and my heart skipped a beat. The figure had moved. It was closer now, just beyond the poorly lit section, but still standing unnaturally still.

My eyes flicked back to the monitor. Still, nothing. The figure wasn’t there. It didn’t make sense.

I rubbed my eyes, trying to shake off the unease settling deep in my gut. Maybe it was a trick of the light, or maybe they were standing just in a blind spot of the camera. That had to be it.

But when I looked back toward the aisle again, the figure had moved again, this time, much closer. Now, it stood under better lighting, but somehow, the shadows still clung to them. I couldn’t make out a face, just the vague silhouette of a person. They stood there, unnervingly still, as if waiting for something.

My body moved before I could stop myself. I got up from behind the counter and made my way toward the aisle. As soon as I rounded the corner and entered the aisle… nothing. No one was there.

I stood still for a moment, the hair on the back of my neck prickling. The store was empty. There was no one there but me.

I checked every aisle, walking through each one slowly, trying to find any trace of someone having been there. But no one was inside. Eventually, I returned to the counter, telling myself that whoever it was must have left the store quietly.

I checked the cameras again. All clear. No sign of any movement.

And then I remembered what Jackson had told me.

The drawer.

I hesitated, looking at the monitor again. Midnight had just passed, and the store felt even quieter now, the silence pressing in on me. Reluctantly, I opened the last drawer behind the counter, expecting maybe some keys or supplies. Instead, my fingers brushed against a folded piece of paper.

I unfolded it and read the first few lines:

These are the rules that you need to follow to make it through the ...

---

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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/mR-gray42 on 2024-11-05 00:13:01+00:00.

---

That’s the thing about getting old, isn’t it? The perspective. When you’re a kid, you think the whole world loves you. You can’t comprehend the idea of someone hurting you, and when someone or something does, it hurts that much more because of that lack of understanding. You can’t comprehend why the mean ants in the anthill began biting you after you stepped on their home. Then you become a teenager and you start thinking the whole world is out to get you, so you lash out at it. You want to make yourself known to the world. You get to adulthood, and you start thinking you can take on the world. It’s not until you realize that everyone else thinks something similar, that everyone else has that same ambition whether they realize it or not, and they’re willing to do whatever it takes even if it means trampling you unless you do the same. You ask yourself why someone would do this to you, and you realize something else. You realize that you’re little more than a blip, a gnat, dirt under someone’s fingernails. It hits you that you’re an ant, and something just destroyed your anthill.

My anthill was destroyed in the year 1968, when I was 27. Back then, I was studying archeology with the intent of uncovering evidence of civilizations people overlooked, nations beyond those born in Mesopotamia and Mesoamerica. I wasn’t some rugged, handsome adventurer type. Between my skinny build, glasses, and my mild-mannered disposition, the folks I spoke to probably thought I was some kind of clerk. I will say for the record, though, that I did carry a snub-nosed .44 with me whenever I traveled. Between the very real possibilities of grave robbers and the Kremlin’s finest, it was always comforting to have that weight on my belt.

The search I conducted took place in an Eastern European nation that I won’t name. For all I know, it lost its name during the collapse of the USSR anyway, as I’ve never found any records of it existing. I went there with a small team funded by an anonymous donor who had expressed interest in uncovering evidence of a lost civilization before the Soviet Union could find it. My team consisted of five others, Mike, Leo, Martin, Charles, and Keith. Mike and Leo were the medic and armed guard respectively, Martin and I were the people who handled the cultural and historical aspects of our journey, Charles was a linguist, and Keith was a quiet man sent by our donor to oversee the expedition, document our findings, conditions among the team, among other things. We often joked that he was also a hatchet man that our donor would use to keep us quiet about the operation. Maybe he was, maybe he wasn’t. If I knew then what I know now, I would have begged him to just shoot all of us there and then. I would have handed him my gun.

The ruins we found were located 120 kilometers outside of a small village beneath a mountain range, the name of which I won’t mention. It was a sad, empty place, to put it lightly. The moment we entered, we could see that the few tired, fearful villagers outside seemed to know what we were after, and they didn’t want us to find it. Even then, I couldn’t help but liken it to Jonathan Harker’s experience with the locals of Transylvania. This comparison persisted when Charles began to ask about the ruins, as he asked a local man about surveys conducted on the mountains. The man grew agitated and began to say things that Charles translated as, “We don’t talk about that place.” Naturally, this piqued our curiosity, so Charles offered to buy the man a drink at the local tavern in exchange for telling us what he knew. This gesture being the universal icebreaker, the gentleman, however reluctantly, took him up on it. He and Charles went into the tavern, and the rest of us waited, feeling the oppressive gloom of the town weighing on us.

We tried to keep things casual, but that sensation persisted up until Charles emerged about an hour later. He said that he had used up half of the money in his wallet that he brought just to get the man to tell him anything, and what he said had been equal parts fascinating and eerie. According to the man, nobody who ventured into those mountains ever came back. At least, they never came back as themselves. There was always something odd about them. This oddness had resulted in no less than fifty people dying in his lifetime alone. He never discussed the exact circumstances, but Charles had enough empathy to not push him further, especially not when the man said own brother had been a casualty. He had told him that he didn’t know what lay in those mountains, but whatever it was, we would be entering at our own risk. At the time, we dismissed it as local superstition, as anyone would, and reasoned that anyone who came from the mountain and died had been affected by isolation, changes in air pressure, pre-existing mental and medical conditions, virtually anything that wasn’t supernatural. This village was old, and saw very few modern commodities, so it would make sense that they would rely on such things to see them through. Perhaps we were trying to reassure ourselves.

At any rate, the man had told Charles where to mark the location on his map, and with that, we soon departed from the village to begin the trek up into the mountains. As we left, I looked back and was unnerved to see that everyone in the village had turned out as if to bid us farewell. They said nothing, but the somber expressions on their sallow faces said that they genuinely thought we were headed to our dooms.

We hiked through the forest that grew along the mountain and by the fifth hour, we had thoroughly convinced ourselves that there was nothing to be afraid of. We took occasional breaks for meals and rest, but we were all quite eager to see what had our client so interested in these ruins. Martin and I engaged in frequent conversations over what civilization the structures belonged to, or if it was possible that people might even live there. This possibility in particular intrigued Martin, who postulated that we might happen upon a tribe or race of humans more cut off from the civilized world than the village. He regaled us with fantastical possibilities of our respective civilizations learning from each other. None of us had the heart to remind him that if there had been people still there, the mountains wouldn’t be as wild as they still were, lacking footpaths and markers among other man-made things that would keep them from getting lost. About two days passed, and we continued hiking deeper into the mountains. The further we climbed, the mistier the air became. It wasn’t until noon of the second day that we stumbled upon it, literally. Martin’s foot connected with a loose rock and he almost tumbled off the side of the mountain. Luckily we caught him and hoisted him back up. He was shaken, but no worse for wear. However, it was when we looked in the direction in which he almost fell that we saw it.

What we had previously mistaken for a mountain range was a circular formation of smaller “mountains”, something that shouldn’t have been geologically possible. It was as if a colossal mountain had previously existed, but something large, a meteor perhaps, had struck the pinnacle. The resulting impact had changed the mountain into something resembling an enormous “crown” of rock and trees. Between the mist and the illusory mountains on all sides, one would need to have traveled in the direction we had to understand the nature of it. But what struck us more than that was the inside of that “crown.” We all saw it clearly, even with the fog tenaciously blocking out the sun. We said nothing, but I know we all believed the same thing: what lay before us was impossible.

It was an edifice of immaculate and bizarre construction. It was constructed of a material like obsidian and possessing an almost pyramid-esque shape. The dread and confusion that had gripped us broke when Leo gruffly asked what we were waiting for. Pushing the dread to the side for now, we began to descend the other side of the mountain, which was far smoother than the outside. We were able to reach the bottom with ease, and, given Leo’s military background, he estimated that we could make a quick and easy escape. As he said that, I felt the dread that already permeated the air around us slither down my spine. Why would we need to escape? If these ruins were mere ruins, then the only thing to fear would be hostile locals, which should have been little issue to a man accustomed to warfare. But the tone of his voice told me that it wasn’t men he was afraid of. No, he didn’t know what he was afraid of, and that in turn frightened us.

Trying to put brave faces on it, we began walking towards the structure, and the closer we got, the more it seemed unlike anything made on Earth. What I had initially mistaken for a pyramid had eight sides, and at the top of it was a strange, cube-like object that rotated slowly, letting out odd pulsing sounds as it glowed. Had I not known better, I might have thought that this thing was acting as a kind of artificial sun. Something I also noticed was that it seemed smaller in scale than it appeared from a distance, like some kind of optical illusion. What I had taken to be a twenty-foot-tall behemoth was in truth no bigger than an average suburban home. Before us stood a narrow entrance that was lit up perfectly by the cube. Without warning, the cube ceased its motions, and the structure shifted. All of us had, until that point, ba...

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